The government may be reopened and running as usual, but the record shutdown shined a light on how communities come together to combat issues like food insecurity. That includes areas rife with military service members like Topeka, Kan.
The 43-day shutdown that concluded Nov. 12 and keeps the government funded until Jan. 30, 2026 negatively impacted programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), women, infants and children (WIC) benefits, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, among numerous other federal agencies in terms of furloughs and delayed payments.
As the shutdown continued for weeks, Americans directly impacted or just on the outside saw how quickly resources ran thin. Military families and veterans across the nation requested food assistance at rates 30–75% above normal, according to the Armed Services YMCA.
One of those places that saw an uptick was Topeka, Kansas, home to volunteers serving the 190th Air Refueling Wing, the Army National Guard, the Kansas National Guard, and U.S. Coast Guard. The community, according to Greater Topeka Chamber of Commerce President Bob Ross, is composed of roughly 3,000 active-duty service members within the city population of about 178,000.
“Those military operations…are major employers that exist within our community,” Ross told Military.com. “We want to make sure that the people that work and serve within the military or through the Department of Defense are taken care of because they’re valued members in our community.
“From a chamber of commerce perspective, I’m honored to be able to use our influence with local businesses to raise awareness for our military and be able to connect them so that when there are needs like food insecurity or if there’s needs with resources that our veterans or military families need, our area businesses can step up.”
‘Stunning Indictment’
Ross said that once the government shutdown was in effect and dragged on, he and others throughout Topeka and surrounding Shawnee County saw needs go from “difficult to crisis very quickly.”
“We saw demand at our food pantry go up 10 times from what it was prior to the shutdown,” he said.
Those figures in Kansas exacerbate more routine food insecurity that occurs but is off most people’s radar in normal times. About 25% of men and women who actively serve across the country are dealing with food insecurity, Ross noted.
The issue hits close to home for Ross, who has a brother-in-law actively serving.
“I see him and my sister dealing with that income restriction,” he said. “I’ve had conversations with military leadership in our community that had to cancel meetings with me because they had an opportunity to go work a farm for a few days.”
“To me, that’s a stunning indictment of what was happening over the last 45 days, that you were putting our men and women into a situation where they were getting paychecks with just zeros on them—which was a real slap in the face,” Ross added.
The situation has helped garner additional awareness for community members who see food insecurity as something that needs to be dealt with all year long.
“To me, that’s a stunning indictment of what was happening over the last 45 days, that you were putting our men and women into a situation where they were getting paychecks with just zeros on them.”
Taking Local Issues National
Ross is also head of the Military Relations Council, which is part of the chamber and advocates for regional service members at the local, state and federal levels.
That includes bringing key local issues to lawmakers in Washington or conducting studies to determine youth population rates and their correlation to long-term military operations in the community.
There remains a stigma for military members asking for any kind of assistance, Ross said.
“A lot of times it’s at the enlisted or junior levels in which you can sometimes have single parents who are raising kids,” he said.
Alongside their economic development agency, called Go Topeka, they collectively pioneered a program that encourages men and women leaving the service to move to Topeka and receive $5,000 towards a new home.
“I think that’s an area in which, you know, having that unified action has been useful,” Ross said. “And we’re also working with our downtown organization on trying to stand up military discounts at all of our downtown restaurants so that when we have a drill weekend and we have a lot of people coming in from all over the state, that those men and women have a chance to enjoy an evening out at a reduced rate as a way of saying ‘thank you’ for their service.”
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