Community members across metro Atlanta are stepping up to help people dealing with food insecurity while SNAP payments remain in limbo.

SNAP provides food benefits for more than 40 million Americans, including more than a million children, families, seniors, and disabled adults in Georgia. Advocates warn that if the shutdown continues, food banks and community pantries will be pushed to the breaking point.

Despite the impending cutoff of SNAP benefits, the WIC program remains funded for a while in Georgia, at least for a couple of weeks.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently notified the Georgia Department of Human Services (DHS) that there is insufficient funding to cover November Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits if the federal government shutdown continues.

It wasn't immediately clear how quickly the EBT cards that beneficiaries use to buy groceries could be reloaded after the ruling.

Articles and videos about Georgia SNAP payments to halt; Democrats urge Kemp to use budget surplus on FOX 5 Atlanta.

"Our state leaders should be planning to support Georgians who will lose SNAP if there is no federal action," Floyd said. "The state should support the emergency food system, like our food banks. However, food banks and community pantries can’t carry this burden alone.”

Georgia’s SNAP administrators say they would need more than $60 million from state coffers to maintain their level of staffing after next year’s federal cuts to the program that more than one in 10 Georgians use for groceries.

Newly released internal DHS tallies show 2,207 case escalations last week alone — most flooding the state's call center — with more than a third repeat complaints amid ongoing SNAP delays.