Federal cuts squeezing food pantries in Aroostook County

A warehouse on Route 1 in Monticello is stacked high with bales of used clothes, bins full of cardboard and shelves full of food. Some of the goods come from trucks heading north that have extra cargo they need to off-load before crossing the Canadian border. Other items, such as potatoes and broccoli, come from nearby farms.  Catholic Charities Maine, which runs the warehouse, sells clothes and furniture at an on-site thrift shop and through recycling programs, then puts that money toward the operation’s primary mission: feeding those in need in Aroostook County. Its operation is set to grow this summer with the addition of a 31,000-cubic-foot freezer — enough room to hold food from nearly eight 18-wheelers. The organization has two warehouses in the county: the one in Monticello, north of Houlton, and one in Caribou. Still, when it receives large donations that need to be refrigerated, it often needs to keep those items in 53-foot trailers at extra cost or scramble to get rid of perishable items quickly. With the addition of the giant freezer at the Monticello location, the nonprofit hopes it can avoid that problem and begin soliciting more big donations of frozen goods, said Jon Blanchard, program director of hunger and relief services.  Each month, between 110,000 and 155,000 pounds of food flows through Catholic Charities to 29 food pantries, as well as to schools and medical clinics, throughout Aroostook County. Recent cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the federal program that provides food benefits to low-income families, better known as food stamps, has hit the region hard, and followed cuts that left the state’s food bank, Good Shepherd, with less federal support. The squeeze has put pressure on Catholic Charities as it works to help feed one of Maine’s most rural counties, where nearly one in five people relies on SNAP benefits to eat each month — among the highest rates in the state. Finding food One morning in late May, Cliff Cyr and Jim Cyr (no relation) drove an hour from Madawaska to Catholic Charities’ Caribou warehouse, ready to load a truck with food bound for the St. Thomas Aquinas food pantry, which is situated along Maine’s northern border. As the first pantry partners to arrive on one of the warehouse’s several monthly pickup days, they got there before a 53-foot trailer from Good Shepherd Food Bank, which had set out from Auburn at 4 a.m., was fully unloaded. Advertisement The last item on their truck, a pallet loaded with 5-pound bags of potatoes grown in Aroostook County, brought their haul up to 10 pallets of food. They collected goods bound for both a pantry in Frenchville, where roughly 60 families would pick up food, and the one in Madawaska, where volunteers prepare up to 250 boxes of food per month. The Madawaska pantry is giving out 15 to 20 more boxes per month than when Cliff Cyr started volunteering three years ago, he said. [](https://w2pcms.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/MadawaskaLoading-1160x773-1.jpg) Jim Cyr, left, and Cliff Cyr, right, watch as a Catholic Charities staff member in Caribou loads a pallet of Aroostook County-grown potatoes onto a box truck bound for the St. Thomas Aquinas food pantry in Madawaska. (Sean Scott/The Maine Monitor) Each month, Catholic Charities staffers put together shelf-stable pallets weighing up to 1,200 pounds and freezer pallets of around 500 pounds for each of its partner pantries and agencies.  The food comes from a variety of sources. Some is purchased directly by Catholic Charities. Some is donated by truckers driving north with excess goods or by local farmers with too much of a particular crop. Much of it comes from Good Shepherd Food Bank, which works with 600 partner agencies statewide.  Good Shepherd facilitates the federal Emergency Food Assistance Program, which provides food in bulk to pantries, as well as Mainers Feeding Mainers, through which the food bank purchases local produce to distribute to pantries statewide. Each month, Catholic Charities also receives roughly 750 boxes of food for people ages 60 and older, via Good Shepherd through the federal Commodity Supplemental Food Program. In an arrangement that is unique to Aroostook County, the Auburn-based food bank works with Catholic Charities to reach pantries spread out across the rural region. Blanchard said federal procurements have declined noticeably in the past three months, more than a year after the Trump administration cut $500 million in funding for the Emergency Food Assistance Program, a 50% reduction. A spokesperson for the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, which administers the program in the state, said Maine received a quarter less food through the federal Emergency Food Assistance Program in 2025 than in the year prior. So far this year, the state has received less than two thirds of what it got in the first five months of 2025.  Heather Paquette, president of Good Shepherd Food Bank, said her organization was able to offset some of the losses through other programs.  Advertisement “It’s unacceptable to have an increased need in the state and distribute less food,” Paquette said, “so that means that the team needs to find creative — and has found creative — ways to bring in more funding that we can use to purchase food.” The reduction comes as SNAP cuts, coupled with higher gas and grocery costs, have left more people in the region in need of help. Last November, the number of SNAP recipients in Aroostook County dropped below 13,000 for the first time in four years, and it has dropped every month since then.  As work requirements for SNAP benefits have become more stringent, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York [found in a February survey](https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2026/05/food-insecurity-and-consumer-pessimism/) that more families across the country are missing meals or receiving food donations than at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Making ends meet Pantry directors in Aroostook County say they’re still able to meet the needs of the people they serve but not without challenges. This spring, Gail Bellamy, pastor of Family Christian Center in Presque Isle, launched a new pantry at her church. Even though Presque Isle has another food pantry, Bellamy said at times she had to send people up to 20 miles away when they would ask the church for help. The pantry served nearly 100 people in each of April and May, its first two months of operation, Bellamy said. Advertisement “In America, nobody should be hungry,” Bellamy said. “We’re supposed to take care of one another. We’re just trying to live out our Christianity in kindness and in charitable works.” Three miles away, Grace Interfaith Food Table, a longtime partner pantry of Catholic Charities in Presque Isle, serves between 250 and 300 people per month. The pantry is open the first four Wednesdays of the month and operates by appointment. George Woodman has relied on the pantry for a little over a year to help feed his household of 10, including his six children and a grandson. He can usually stretch a box from the pantry for a week. He also relies on SNAP benefits, but in the past year his household’s benefits have dropped from around $1,200 to below $800 per month. [](https://w2pcms.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/GIFT_Boxes.jpg) Grace Interfaith Food Table in Presque Isle serves 250 to 300 people a month. (Sean Scott/The Maine Monitor) Since the start of 2026, the pantry has had to purchase more of its own food rather than get it from Catholic Charities or Good Shepherd, said pantry director Marcia Cogswell. The pantry almost never gets frozen meat now, and, during her last distribution day in May, she had to purchase eggs from the store to have enough for each client. The lack of food availability, especially through the federal Emergency Food Assistance Program, has led Cogswell to limit how much each client gets.  “A lot of people are really understanding,” she said, “and they’re grateful for what little bit we can give, but we’ve had to cut back.” Advertisement Other pantry directors reported similar struggles. Caribou United Baptist Church Food Pantry relies on the federal Emergency Food Assistance Program for roughly 35% of its food, said pantry director Alan McBreairty, and it now receives half as much food as it used to. Another 35% of the pantry’s supply comes from Catholic Charities; 20% is donated by Hannaford; and the rest comes from purchases made with a monthly church offering. McBreairty estimated the pantry spends about $500 per month on food, electricity and other expenses. For those who distribute food throughout Aroostook County, paying for gas is a big part of the cost of doing business in such a rural area. To keep driving distances low for people in need, the county — population 67,000 — has more pantries per capita spread throughout its 6,450 square miles than anywhere else in the state. “It’s like basically a small city in a giant land area,” Blanchard said. “People can fall through the cracks pretty easily.” _This story was originally published by **[The Maine Monitor](https://www.themainemonitor.org/)**, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. To get regular coverage from The Monitor, sign up for a free Monitor newsletter [here](https://themainemonitor.org/newsletters/)._ Copy the Story Link Tagged: [aroostook county](https://www.pressherald.com/tag/aroostook-county/), [food insecurity](https://www.pressherald.com/tag/food-insecurity/), [food pantries](https://www.pressherald.com/tag/food-pantries/)