'Shining a bright light on what true leadership looks like'
President and CEO Lee Pelton on TBF's collaboration with the City of Boston to ensure food security for all
October 31, 2025
Editor's note: These are the prepared remarks TBF President and CEO delivered at the October 31 press conference announcing a new collaborative effort between the Boston Foundation and the City of Boston to ensure that, as Mayor Michelle Wu simply put it, "In Boston, everyone eats." The event was held shortly before two federal judges ordered the government to meet its obligation to fund the SNAP program during the Government shutdown.
Thank you, Mayor Wu.
The true measure of a great government is how it ministers to the neediest among us, especially during a time of crisis and conflict. So, the many citizens of this great city, thank you, Mayor Wu, for you courageous, bold and generous leadership. It has made and will continue to make a real and lasting difference.
Starting tomorrow, unless there is a federal judicial ruling to the contrary, thousands of Massachusetts families — including children, seniors, and individuals already struggling to make ends meet — will lose access to their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. This cutoff threatens to deepen a growing hunger crisis across the nation and closer to home. The federal government’s failure to adequately fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — SNAP — is more than a policy lapse. It’s a moral failure that has left thousands of Boston families struggling to put food on the table.
Roughly one is eight people in the United States receive food stamps, which averages around $187 a month. One in five households in Boston already experiences food insecurity. When federal aid is cut, the impact lands hardest on children, seniors, and working families, who are already stretched thin by rising costs of living.
As a U.S. State Attorney General recently said, ‘SNAP is one of our nation’s most effective tools to fight hunger and the U.S.D.A. has the money to kept it running. There is no excuse for this administration to abandon families who rely on SNAP, or food stamps, as a lifeline.
"We recognize that this is not end of something, but rather the beginning of something big and important, if all of us were committed to an effort to alleviate hunger in this great city and beyond."
-Lee Pelton, President and CEO
The decision by the Federal Government not to release funds for SNAP and other food programs has put the health of more than a million people in Massachusetts at risk. It will require all of us to live up to our shared responsibility to care for and support our neighbors – especially our children – in this time of critical need.
To date, the Boston Foundation and our generous Donor Advised community have donated more than a $2 million dollars to the Greater Boston Food Bank, food pantries and other food distribution organizations to alleviate hunger and anxiety in Greater Boston. And, yet, there is much more good work to do.
We are recently launched our Meeting the Moment: Sustaining Families initiative with a commitment across our Foundation and in partnership with our donors, nonprofit leaders and organizations and civic leaders at the local, regional and state levels. Our aim is to ensure that every person in our city and region is able to access quality food as part of our broader efforts to meet this moment and defend the rights, health and wellbeing of everyone who calls Massachusetts home.
Beginning yesterday, we reached out to The Boston Foundation’s Donor Advised community with an appeal to each of them to provide much needed additional dollars for nutritional aid so that the most vulnerable among us do not go to bed and wake up each morning to hunger.
We recognize that this is not end of something, but rather the beginning of something big and important, if all of us were committed to an effort to alleviate hunger in this great city and beyond.
So, Mayor, thank you so very much for leading the way, as you always do, in this time of crisis, and in doing so, shine a bright light on what true leadership looks like.
With much gratitude and deep appreciation, thank you.
To join the effort to ensure everyone in Boston has access to food and to support Greater Boston's critical food security systems, you can click here to donate to Meeting the Moment: Sustaining Families, or go to tbf.org/SNAP.