Tech

PA Gov. Shapiro makes $5M available to state food banks as SNAP benefits set to expire

PA Gov. Shapiro makes $5M available to state food banks as SNAP benefits set to expire

For information on submitting an obituary, please contact Reading Eagle by phone at 610-371-5018, or email at obituaries@readingeagle.com or fax at 610-371-5193.

Most obituaries published in the Reading Eagle are submitted through funeral homes and cremation services, but we will accept submissions from families. Obituaries can be emailed to obituaries@readingeagle.com.

In addition to the text of the obituary, any photographs that you wish to include can be attached to this email. Please put the text of the obituary in a Word document, a Google document or in the body of the email. The Reading Eagle also requires a way to verify the death, so please include either the phone number of the funeral home or cremation service that is in charge of the deceased's care or a photo of his/her death certificate. We also request that your full name, phone number and address are all included in this email.

All payments by families must be made with a credit card. We will send a proof of the completed obituary before we require payment. The obituary cannot run, however, until we receive payment in full.

Obituaries can be submitted for any future date, but they must be received no later than 3:00 p.m. the day prior to its running for it to be published.

Please call the obituary desk, at 610-371-5018, for information on pricing.

Gov. Josh Shapiro made $5 million available for Pennsylvania food banks on Friday through Feeding Pennsylvania as the federally subsidized Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program was set to dry up.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture planned to freeze payments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program on Saturday because it said it could no longer keep funding it due to the federal government shutdown.

Meanwhile, two federal judges ruled nearly simultaneously on Friday that the Trump administration must continue to fund SNAP, the nation’s biggest food aid program, during the shutdown through contingency funds.

The program serves about 1 in 8 Americans and is a major piece of the nation’s social safety net. Word in October that it would be a Nov. 1 casualty of the shutdown sent states, food banks and SNAP recipients scrambling to figure out how to secure food. Some states said they would spend their own funds to keep versions of the program going.