Skaneateles, N.Y. -- Jeff Knauss started out with a modest goal: Raise $10,000 to help feed families who are losing their SNAP benefits this weekend.
In less than 48 hours, he blew that number out of the water, raising $150,000.
But the truly shocking figure was the people who asked for help: 32,641.
"Unfortunately, the need continues to outweigh everyone’s incredible generosity," Knauss wrote in a social media post. He said he is pausing applications at this point. It would take a “miracle” just to fill the applications he has now, he wrote.
He would need more than $4 million to buy each of them a $150 gift card to help ease the loss of their grocery money.
And that’s still just a fraction of the money families will lose this weekend when they don’t receive the federal food stamp payments they depend on to help buy groceries.
Knauss, who founded Digital Hyve, is an investor in several other companies and restaurants in the area, including Hidden Fish, Clover’s and XO Taco. He shared that he was born in poverty to two teen parents in South Korea before being adopted by an Upstate family.
“Had that not been the case, my life’s story would be very different through no choice of my own,” Knauss wrote in a post explaining his fundraiser.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Monday that the government will stop funding the debit cards more than 100,000 people in CNY depend upon every month to buy their groceries.
Knauss’s fundraiser is also for families in the Rochester area. More than 3 million people in the state depend on SNAP benefits for at least a portion of their food budget. The money is caught up in the government shutdown.
SOURCE :syracuse