Trump proposes to cut food boxes for low-income seniors, a move that ‘hurts’ thousands of Pennsylvanians, advocates say

President Donald Trump’s proposed federal budget would eliminate funding for a small but effective anti-hunger program that provides boxes of food that help nourish and sustain low-income senior citizens throughout Pennsylvania and the nation.

Scrapping the more than 50-year-old senior food box plan would hurt older Pennsylvanians with scant resources, according to Stuart Haniff, executive director of the Pittsburgh-based nonprofit Hunger-Free Pennsylvania, which represents a network of 18 food banks across the state — including Share Food Program and Philabundance in Philadelphia — that administer the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), which provides the senior boxes.

Share in North Philadelphia distributes boxes to 7,189 people in the Philadelphia region age 60 and older who take in $23,000 or less annually, according to Hunger-Free Pennsylvania figures — more than any other organization in the state. Philabundance serves 2,744 people. Throughout the state, the senior box program, which costs $20 million annually, serves 38,000 people.

“The boxes are critical lifesavers,” Haniff said. “Removing them will create uncertainty and chaos at a time when Congress wants to cut SNAP [the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] as food prices rise.”

Each box contains 32 pounds of shelf-stable foods such as beans, rice, and pasta, delivered monthly.

In place of the senior box program, which costs $389 million a year to serve 730,000 people nationwide, the White House is recommending an initiative that will distribute so-called MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) food boxes, which it says would be filled with healthy produce and other commodities sourced from farmers and given directly to American households.

MAHA references Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s political and health-related goals. Described by the MAHA political action committee as a “revolutionary force,” MAHA is a “pledge to create the highest quality of life, [and] build the safest and wealthiest and healthiest and most vital communities anywhere in the world,” according to the White House.

The White House, which did not respond to requests for comment, has offered few details on MAHA boxes.

One thing the administration has made clear, however, is that MAHA boxes will not rely on the infrastructure that is used to deliver senior boxes, said George Matysik, Share’s executive director.

Since the early 1970s, food banks around the country have purchased, packaged, and delivered senior boxes, developing a proven system of logistics that farmers and contractors could not possibly duplicate quickly enough to offer uninterrupted service to people living in poverty, Matysik said.

The senior boxes that are filled and sealed at Share are loaded into the cars of drivers for DoorDash, the online food-ordering and delivery service.

During the four weekly hours it supervises the distribution of 1,000 senior food boxes, Share handles a greater number of delivery orders than any store or restaurant in the world on the DoorDash app, according to DoorDash executives.

That includes more than 400,000 stores and restaurants in 7,000 cities throughout 25 countries, according to figures from DoorDash executives, as well as from delivery-industry experts.

“It means a lot to get a box. It feels good knowing someone is thinking of you,” said Jerome Johnson, 62, a disabled North Philadelphia man who receives boxes from Share.

“A lot of seniors are upset it could be going away. It’s a shame they’re trying to cancel it.”

Dismantling such an operation without a proven alternative would be “indecent,” Matysik said.

“Countless seniors across this country face fixed incomes, empty cupboards, and skipped meals every single day,” he added. “Taking this resource from them is not losing some budget line item — it’s a moral failure. These are the people who raised us. Leaving them behind is the cruelest way forward.”

Not everyone is enamored of the senior food box.

Some advocates have railed against the high salt content in some of the canned goods and processed foods that seniors receive. Certainly, a fresh vegetable-dependent diet would be preferable, said sociologist Maria Kefalas of St. Joseph’s University, an expert on poverty and U.S. healthcare policy.

“It’d be nice if everyone ate French lentils and kale, but that’s not how low-income, elderly Americans eat,” Kefalas said.

There are reasons for that, she added.

“Vegetables can be difficult to cook. Older people may not have the physical dexterity, patience, and time to devote to it. Not everyone knows how to deal with produce. And many people living in poverty may have only a few pots and inadequate cooking utensils,” she said.

“But the food in senior boxes is easy to prepare. The idea of giving poor, elderly people fresh vegetables and expecting them to make them into meals is insane.”

There is precedent, Kefalas said. Fresh-food delivery in boxes was attempted by Trump’s first administration during the pandemic.

And, according to Haniff, “the whole process was disastrous.”

A U.S. House subcommittee agreed in a report issued in 2021, when Democrats controlled the chamber.

The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis charged that the Trump administration’s Farmers to Families Food Box Program was hindered by “significant mismanagement” that led to the granting of multimillion-dollar contracts to “unqualified recipients.”

For example, the administration awarded a $39 million food-box distribution contract to a company called CRE8AD8 of San Antonio, which did wedding and event planning.

“This structure was fundamentally vulnerable to fraud and abuse,” the report said.

Additionally, the subcommittee criticized Trump for politicizing the food emergency by including a signed letter in the food boxes that read: “I prioritized sending nutritious food from our farmers to our families in need throughout America.”

Philabundance, which received the boxes to be distributed to individuals, pulled the letters before anyone could see them, and replaced them with voter information.

“If the MAHA boxes are anything like what the administration did before,” Haniff said, “it’ll be frightening.”