By Elket Rodriguez, CBF Global Migration Advocate
Nearly 43,000 people in the Rio Grande Valley have stopped receiving SNAP benefits since November 2025. But did 43,000 people stop being hungry?
That question emerged repeatedly at Hunger in the RGV: A Call to Action, a gathering convened by Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez that brought together elected officials, educators, nonprofits, businesses and faith leaders to examine hunger and recent public policy changes.
I attended the gathering alongside Caly Fernandez, a FaithWorks ministry partner and Executive Director of House of Love and Justice. Caly also serves on Hidalgo County’s Prosperity Task Force, where transportation is among the barriers the group is working to address.
The numbers presented were striking.
Omar Rodriguez of the Food Bank of the Rio Grande Valley said that when he began working there in 2010, the food bank and its partners served about 25,000 people each week. Today, they serve approximately 96,000.
Meanwhile, SNAP participation in the Valley has fallen sharply. Rodriguez reported that the region is now receiving approximately $18 million less in SNAP benefits each month than it did in November 2025.
Those numbers raise a critical question: Are fewer families hungry, or have changes in eligibility, work requirements and administrative burdens simply made assistance harder to obtain?
Dr. Xi “Marcie” Mao of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley reminded participants that the consequences extend beyond individual households. SNAP dollars move through grocery stores, jobs, suppliers and the broader local economy. A reduction that looks like federal savings can become a cost borne by families, businesses, schools, food banks and local communities.
But the most compelling testimony came from Mayra Lopez.
Lopez crossed the border with her family at age 12 and left school to work full-time in the fields. Later, as a single mother of premature twins, WIC and SNAP helped her feed her children. Today, retired and living on Social Security, she carefully shops markdowns and saves every leftover.
“I don’t think food should be something people worry about,” she said. “Everyone has the right to eat.”
Her story reveals the contradiction behind the statistics: people who have spent their lives harvesting and preparing America’s food can still struggle to feed their own families.
For people of faith, that demands more than charity.
Jeremy Everett of the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty pointed participants toward Matthew 25: “I was hungry and you gave me food.” Dr. Leticia Nevárez Zavala pushed the conversation further, arguing that hunger in the Valley is intertwined with poverty, geography, immigration status, transportation and generations of disinvestment.
Judge Cortez put it simply: “Transportation is one of our main issues. Hunger and transportation are intertwined together.”
That reality is especially visible in the colonias, where distance from grocery stores, health care and other basic services can compound poverty and hunger. Even generosity must begin by listening: a donated Thanksgiving turkey is not particularly helpful to a family without an oven or the cookware needed to prepare it.
The challenge emerging from the gathering was therefore larger than feeding people.
Government, churches, nonprofits, schools and businesses all have a role. Charity matters, but so do the systems that determine who needs charity in the first place.
The decline in SNAP enrollment tells us how many people stopped receiving assistance.
It does not tell us how many stopped being hungry.
That is the question our communities—and our churches—must keep asking.
This article was originally published on Faithworks.com