With many Americans facing financial uncertainty amid the ongoing government shutdown, one small-town diner is stepping up to help.
Southwest Diner in Boulder City, Nevada, has been serving free breakfast, lunch and dinner to children accompanied their parents since Monday, to help out families feeling the pinch.
"I just don't think kids should be caught in the middle of a political fight," Southwest Diner owner Cindy Ford told ABC News. "I just feel no child deserves to not be fed."
"If everybody helps everybody, the world will be a better place. But that's why I just I think it's totally unfair that the benefits that they were getting are just gone," Ford added. "And there's a lot of people out there struggling, a lot of single moms with kids, and it's extremely difficult nowadays with the price of groceries at the store, with insurance, just with everything."
Ford said that she has been running Southwest Diner for 33 years, and that the restaurant previously gave free meals to children during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"If it wasn't for the people we wouldn't be here. Boulder City is a small town, and they've supported me for 33 years. I can support people that, you know, don't have as much," she said.
Sara Olson, a manager at Southwest Diner, said that the restaurant has already given over 30 free meals to children this week, from a menu that includes eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes and French toast for breakfast, and lunch items like hot dogs, quesadillas, grilled cheese sandwiches, corn dogs, hamburger sliders and chicken fingers, plus sides.
"Our number-one goal is to make sure that kids are fed," Olson told ABC Las Vegas affiliate station KTNV. "We are proud to help and feed our community. We are all in this together. These kids are our future, so we need to take care of them."
As the federal government shutdown entered its 36th full day Wednesday it has officially become the longest in U.S. history. Some 42 million Americans who need food assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are vulnerable after funding for the program lapsed over the weekend.
A judge last week ordered the Trump administration to use emergency funds to pay for SNAP amid the ongoing government shutdown. The Trump administration has committed to partially funding SNAP with a $4.65 billion payment, but using emergency funds to pay for reduced SNAP benefits could take "a few weeks to up to several months," a top USDA official told a federal judge in a sworn court filing Monday.
On Capitol Hill, Republicans and Democrats continue to blame each other for the stalemate, with over a dozen failed votes so far to reopen the government. Democrats are demanding an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies as part of any funding bill, while Republicans say they will not negotiate on the ACA until the government reopens.
Nevada had nearly 500,000 people receiving SNAP benefits as of May, the most recent data available, according to the USDA.
