A mile-long line for free food offers a warning as covid benefits end

By Tim Craig
March 4, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EST

HAZEL GREEN, Ky. — As he claimed the first spot in a mile-long line for free food in the Appalachian foothills, Danny Blair vividly recalled receiving the letter announcing that his pandemic-era benefit to help buy groceries was about to be slashed.

Kentucky lawmakers had voted to end the state’s health emergency last spring, by default cutting food stamp benefits created to help vulnerable Americans like Blair weather the worst of covid-19. Instead of $200 a month, he would get just $30. ... He crumpled up the letter and threw it on the floor of his camper.

“I thought, ‘Wow, the government is trying to kill us now,’” said Blair, 63, who survives on his Social Security disability check and lives in a mobile home with his wife after their house burned down five years ago. “They are going to starve us out.”

To avoid that from happening, Blair and his wife hop into their truck twice a month at 4 a.m. to ensure they get a few staples at the Hazel Green Food Project’s giveaway. On a recent Friday, they waited nine hours until local prisoners on work duty started loading bags of meat and vegetables, potato chips and cookies into vehicles in one of the nation’s most impoverished communities.



Danny and Flora Blair wait in their truck for free food with the Hazel Green Food Project in Hazel Green. They were first in line after arriving at 4 a.m. (Reshma Kirpalani/The Washington Post)
From the front to the back of the line, the sea of despair and hardship along this desolate Kentucky highway foreshadowed what may be in store for millions of Americans as the federal government ended the remaining pandemic increase in monthly food stamp benefits this week.

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Nicky Stacy helps distribute food with the Hazel Green Food Project. (Reshma Kirpalani/The Washington Post)

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Courtney and Beatty Stone arrived in line around 10 a.m. and settled in for a three-hour wait. (Reshma Kirpalani/The Washington Post)

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By Tim Craig
Tim Craig is a national reporter on the America desk. He previously served as head of The Washington Post’s Afghanistan-Pakistan bureau, based in Islamabad and Kabul. He has also reported from Iraq, the District and Baltimore. Twitter https://twitter.com/timcraigpost