Even before the latest confusion over SNAP benefits, hunger in Talbot County was already stretching the seams of a fragile food network. “We were already seeing increased need—and probably more need than a lot of our neighbors are aware of,” said Nancy Andrew of the Talbot Family Network, whose data shows county food pantries now serve more than 3,000 people each week. The uncertainty surrounding federal benefits has only deepened the strain. “This is not a problem that just came up because of the issue with SNAP,” said Andy Hollis, Executive Director of the Neighborhood Service Center. “Food insecurity in this county is real. We sometimes hide behind the prosperity that Talbot County has.”
In a Spy roundtable filmed last week with Andrew, Hollis, and Amy Horne of the St. Michaels Community Center, all three described a surge in demand that has doubled in just a year. The Neighborhood Service Center pantry in Easton, for instance, served 174 households in September, up from 87 the year before. In St. Michaels, Horne said, “We ran out of hot meals in about an hour and fifteen minutes—which I’ve never seen before.” The county’s need spans age and income: seniors on fixed incomes, families earning minimum wage, and the working poor who come early before shifts to pick up food. “It costs one person $42,000 a year to live in Talbot County,” Horne noted. “Most of our neighbors don’t make that.”
Still, the conversation carried something other than despair. All three spoke of a community that gives back as quickly as it’s asked to. Hollis recalled a stranger who slipped him a $20 bill at BJ’s after learning he was buying food for a pantry. “That’s what keeps me optimistic,” he said. Both the Neighborhood Service Center and St. Michaels Community Center are adding evening hours for working families, with updates to be posted soon on FeedTalbot.org. As Andrew put it, “Every day, people in this county craft together—through big hearts and hard work—a food system to fill the gaps. It’s imperfect, but it’s ours.”
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Rory McCall says
And yet Andy Harris refuses to hold live town hall meetings. Instead doing zoom calls where 8-10 hand selected constituents get to speak while everyone else is muted. We need real leadership in Talbot, not a rubber stamper cow towing to Trumps agenda.0
Mary Smith says
Talbot County’s food insecurity crisis isn’t a mystery. When you zone out jobs, block services, and freeze villages in place for decades, people end up struggling. You can’t build an economy when growth is forced into a few crowded towns and the rest of the county is treated like a museum. Families need nearby work, affordable stores, and real opportunity – not another lecture about “preservation.” If Talbot wants less hunger, it needs to stop starving its own people.