As food insecurity grows across Western New York and the nation, Empowering Everyday Women Ministries is helping struggling families enjoy a warm Thanksgiving meal.
By EEW Magazine Online News Editors
Empowering Everyday Women Ministries’ Thanksgiving Hunger Relief 2026 campaign is helping provide warm holiday meals for struggling families in Western New York. (Photo: Lelia Milaya)
Last Thanksgiving, Monica was working every shift she could get while raising two children and struggling to keep up with the bills. Rent, utilities, groceries and transportation consumed nearly everything she earned. With Thanksgiving approaching, she worried about how she would afford a holiday dinner. Her children were excited about Thanksgiving, but even a turkey and a few side dishes would mean taking money away from another necessity.
Monica considered letting the holiday pass without a special meal and hoped her children would understand. Then help arrived through the annual Thanksgiving Hunger Relief campaign of Empowering Everyday Women Ministries, Inc.
That Thanksgiving, Monica and her children gathered around the table for a warm holiday dinner. They ate, laughed and enjoyed time together, free from the worry that had weighed on her for weeks. It was the kind of ordinary family moment that financial hardship can push out of reach.
“For one day, I didn’t have to choose between buying groceries and paying a bill,” Monica said. “I could just be present with my children.”
Her last name and her children’s names are being withheld to protect their privacy.
This year, the Buffalo-based nonprofit has launched Thanksgiving Hunger Relief 2026, inviting supporters to help provide warm, nourishing meals to families facing financial hardship in Western New York before Thanksgiving on Nov. 26.
Thanksgiving Hunger Relief 2026 aims to help struggling families in Western New York gather around a full holiday table this season. (Photo: Carl Daniels/EEW Magazine File)
In February, a survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that 10% of families had missed meals because they lacked food, while nearly 16% had relied on food donations, according to NPR. Among households earning less than $50,000 annually, nearly one in five had skipped meals or gone without food.
Researchers found that food insecurity had climbed above levels recorded during the summer of 2020, when pandemic-related unemployment was soaring. The government relief payments and expanded unemployment benefits of that period have long since ended, and food prices have risen quickly in the years since.
The same survey found that nearly 18% of families had received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, up from 10.6% in 2020. Among lower-income families, more than 38% now receive them, compared with about 22% six years ago.
Feeding America’s latest Map the Meal Gap study, released in July, found food insecurity in every county and congressional district in the country. In some communities, an estimated 45% of children lacked consistent access to enough food. Rural counties and those in the South had the highest rates. The study put the national average cost of a single meal at $3.70, with county costs ranging from $2.56 to $6.28.
Those figures may be among the last of their kind. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has stopped collecting its own food security data, and this year’s report is the final one built on that federal research.
In Western New York, approximately 185,000 people, including nearly 54,000 children, experienced food insecurity in 2023, according to Feeding America estimates reported by WKBW.
Changes to federal food assistance have brought additional challenges. Since March, certain New York adults receiving SNAP benefits have been required to document about 80 hours a month of work, training or volunteering, Documented reported. Those who miss the requirement in any three months between March and September risk losing food assistance. Nearly 3 million New Yorkers rely on the program, and in New York City alone, more than 22,000 SNAP cases closed in June, according to city data reported by Hoodline.
A mother working hard to support her children may still find herself choosing between groceries and an overdue utility bill. During the holidays, the financial strain can be even greater.
Through Thanksgiving Hunger Relief 2026, Empowering Everyday Women Ministries hopes to ease that burden. Each meal lifts some of the weight parents carry and delivers the message at the heart of the ministry’s outreach: God sees them, and His people care. The ministry also works through national partnerships to support hunger-relief organizations and food distribution efforts beyond Western New York.
“Thanksgiving is a day of gratitude and harvest, and no family should sit down to an empty table,” said Dianna Hobbs, the ministry’s founder and CEO. “Every meal we provide tells a family that God has not forgotten them.”
Founded in 2007, Empowering Everyday Women Ministries is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose humanitarian work includes food assistance, clean water initiatives and emergency aid. The ministry also provides dignity kits containing hygiene essentials, a Bible and a message of encouragement for women and girls, and is working to distribute 5,000 Bibles to orphaned children.
Its Thanksgiving campaign is rooted in Proverbs 22:9: “He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed; for he giveth of his bread to the poor.”
Throughout Scripture, caring for hungry people is an expression of compassion and obedience to God. Through the prophet Isaiah, God promised that those who “draw out thy soul to the hungry” would see their light rise in obscurity (Isaiah 58:10). In Matthew 25:35, Jesus declares, “For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat,” counting a meal given to someone in need as a meal given to Him.
Supporters can contribute through the Thanksgiving Hunger Relief 2026 campaign page. Donations are tax-deductible as allowed by law.
EEW Magazine Online is part of Empowering Everyday Women Ministries, Inc.
