On a recent morning at Federal Hill House in Providence, the food pantry was in full swing. Groups of clients gathered in the waiting area, while a staff member called out numbers. Volunteers handed out lettuce, carrots, and potatoes.
It’s a usual scene at the pantry. But over the past month, the organization has found itself in an unexpected arena: at the center of a fierce legal battle over food aid for 42 million Americans.
In late October, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it would not send out SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, in November if the federal government shutdown dragged on. Roughly 145,000 Rhode Islanders and more than 1.1 million people in Massachusetts receive SNAP benefits.
In the wake of the announcement, a group of nonprofit organizations and cities – mostly from Rhode Island – mobilized to sue the Trump administration to release the money. Federal Hill House was one of them.
“We can have the most amazing food pantry in the world,” Kimberly Fernandez, executive director of the organization, said in a recent interview. “But it’s the system that’s broken.”
The group’s efforts came with some success: a federal judge ruled with the plaintiffs, and some money went to states.
Full funds weren’t sent out until the federal shutdown ended. Still, how did a group from the smallest state in the nation end up fighting for the country’s SNAP benefits?
Rhode Island attorneys challenge the Trump Administration
Miriam Weizenbaum opens the side door to her brick law office on North Main Street. She has blond hair and wears large round glasses. She hasn’t always worked on cases like this, she explains. For the past few years, she has focused on civil litigation like medical negligence.
But things changed when Trump was elected. She remembers reading Project 2025, the list of conservative agenda items for Trump’s presidency.
“The administration was preparing for an enormous amount of illegality,” said Weizenbaum. “I talked to my law partner and said we need … to be able to respond to this in Rhode Island.”
She started The Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island and began running legal workshops for nonprofit organizations. The group collaborated with a D.C.-based legal aid organization called Democracy Forward and litigated a number of cases seeking to restore grant funding to nonprofits.
In late October, she received a call from Democracy Forward about the threat to SNAP benefits. She recalls them asking, “What do you think about doing it in Rhode Island?”
Weizenbaum had been preparing for this moment. Her team knew who to call.
“We were already building those relationships,” Weizenbaum said, “and helping that sector here in Rhode Island have a reason to be more courageous.”
A leap of faith
When Weizenbaum’s team reached out, Bonnie Piekarski, founder of the Milagros Project, hesitated at first.
“When I first got the call to sign on to it, I definitely had to think about it,” she said. The Milagros Project is a small, volunteer-run organization that distributes food and runs community events in Woonsocket.
But as a mother who once relied on the very benefits at risk, Piekarski quickly came to a decision.
“I have two daughters, and they were raised on SNAP benefits and food stamps,” she said.
Kimberly Fernandez of Federal Hill House also weighed the potential consequences. Her organization had already experienced cuts and pauses to funding. But she ultimately saw no real choice.
“It’s already happening whether or not you stand up,” she said. “So for me, that’s a risk we’ll take for the greater good.”
In the end, 20 plaintiffs joined the case. Half were from Rhode Island. In addition to Federal Hill House and The Milagros Project, they included the Rhode Island State Council of Churches; the city of Central Falls; the city of Pawtucket; the city of Providence; Amos House; the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Center; the East Bay Community Action Program; and United Way of Rhode Island.
For the legal team, what normally takes months was compressed into four frantic days. Attorneys from the Lawyers’ Committee and Democracy Forward drafted the lawsuit at breakneck speed, arguing that without SNAP, local cities and nonprofits would be forced to shoulder the burden of preventing hunger.
They filed on Oct. 30, just two days before SNAP benefits would normally go out. Unlike another case filed in Massachusetts, also suing over SNAP, the Rhode Island case would apply to the whole country.
In response to the complaint, the Trump Administration argued that it lacked funds for a full November payment and that issuing a partial benefit would be too complex.
All the way to the Supreme Court
Just one day after the lawsuit was filed, a federal judge in Rhode Island sided with the plaintiffs. He ordered the government to pay out at least partial SNAP benefits. In a second ruling days later, he ordered that full payments must go out. It was a win for Weizenbaum’s team.
“The whole country was like holding their breath to see, is food going to be restored? And they’re seeing people stand up,” Weizenbaum said.
The next few days were chaotic: the Trump administration appealed the ruling, but did send out some SNAP benefits. Then, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the administration a pause on the ruling, and the USDA asked states to “undo” some payments.
“It’s difficult for me to convey to you how unusual the speed of all of these things is happening,” said Kevin Love Hubbard, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs. “It’s not normal lawyer practice to end up at the Supreme Court in two weeks.”
Ultimately, full SNAP benefits were not sent to the entire country until the federal shutdown ended Nov. 12. But Weizenbaum believes that the case sets an important precedent beyond the temporary crisis.
One of its most significant accomplishments is that the public was able to see that one response to this administration can be standing up to it.
“One of its most significant accomplishments is that the public was able to see that one response to this administration can be standing up to it,” said Weizenbaum. Her team continues to represent Rhode Islanders. They are also working on a case over funding for homelessness services.
Hubbard said that challenging the federal government can be intimidating, but he hopes this lawsuit can show others what is possible.
“There is this sense,” he said, “that courage is contagious.”
