EJI’s Anti-Hunger Program

On a cloudy Saturday morning in May, in an industrial area near downtown Montgomery, Alabama, a small group of women forms a small line in a gravel lot bordering railroad tracks, the Alabama River, and the Legacy Museum. As a light rain falls, the women grip umbrellas, jacket hoods, and the hands of small children looking curiously at the brightly-painted trailer parked just ahead of them.

“We’ll be ready to get started soon, everybody,” says Richard Burton, part of the team preparing the trailer. “Sorry about this weather.”

“Oh we’re fine,” one woman replies.

“Blessed and glad to be here,” says another.

As participants in the Equal Justice Initiative’s Anti-Hunger Program, the women each receive $415 per month via prepaid credit card to help with the costs of food and other essential grocery items like diapers. In operation since 2022, the program has served more than 6,000 families throughout Alabama and, most recently, launched a mobile grocery truck that travels the state selling fruits, vegetables, meats, and other staple items at wholesale prices.

EJI’s Sakwana Dickens checks inventory in EJI’s mobile grocery store.

This morning is the first time the truck has been deployed in Montgomery, and a staff of five men and women are quickly stocking the shelves and freezers under the patient, watchful eye of an ever-growing line.

Program staff are recognizable by their colorful array of T-shirts advertising the organization’s Montgomery-based cultural sites or featuring quotes from its materials.

“The opposite of poverty is not wealth,” announces the back of one light blue shirt with red lettering. “The opposite of poverty is justice.”

An elderly woman with a cane slowly makes her way from the parking lot and a staff member approaches to help.

“Good morning, do you have an EJI program card to shop today?”

“No. My granddaughter told me y’all were out here and that I should come down to try to get some food for the house.”

In addition to program participants approved to receive a funded card for up to six consecutive months, the EJI grocery truck is available to people who are struggling with food insecurity and wish to buy essential food items at dramatically reduced prices using their own funds. The woman is directed to another member of the EJI team seated at a table near the trailer’s entrance. In a brief screening interview, she provides her name, address, phone number, and details about her household.

“Alright, thank you for that,” the staff member concludes. “So this last question just explains that our program is intended to support community members who are experiencing food insecurity and have struggled to buy enough food to feed themselves and the members of their household. Have you experienced that situation within the past six months?”

“Yes,” the woman adjusts her glasses and answers in a low, almost apologetic tone. “It feels bad to say it, but yes, I’m in that situation now.”

The staff member writes the woman’s name onto a paper pass that will grant immediate access to the grocery truck.

“That’s the right answer and that’s why we’re here,” she says, placing the pass into the woman’s hand with a smile. “I’m glad you made it out to see us today.”

Nearly 1 in 4 Alabama children face food insecurity.

According to the USDA’s most recent report, more than 47 million people in the U.S. lived in households experiencing food insecurity in 2023. That means 13.5% of Americans had difficulty obtaining enough food to meet their needs due to a lack of money or other resources. Over 13.8 million children in the U.S. live in food insecure households, and rates of food insecurity were higher among Black households, single-parent households, the elderly, and households in the South.

In Alabama, nearly 1 in 5 adults (17%) and nearly 1 in 4 children (23%) face food insecurity. These rates increased during the Covid-19 pandemic, and food insecurity continues to have devastating consequences for families and communities.

“Food insecurity affects the physical and mental well-being of people of all ages,” explains the Alabama Department of Public Health. “For many people, fixed expenses such as housing and medication are covered first, leaving little for more flexible expenses such as the food budget. Sometimes, this leads to purchasing lower quality food to make sure there’s enough to go around.”

Alabamians facing hunger rely on a patchwork of federal, state, and private charity programs to fill resource gaps and keep food on the table. Federal benefits include SNAP food stamps, WIC benefits for pregnant women and young children, free and reduced price lunch for children attending school, and other programs targeting the elderly. Eligibility requirements are precise and strictly enforced. To qualify for SNAP, for example, a household’s income must fall below 130% of the federal poverty line and meet asset limits and other restrictions.

“The fact that even one child or adult in Alabama is at risk of hunger means we have gaps in our food system,” the West Alabama Food Bank reported in their most recent survey examining hunger in the state’s western region. “Eighty percent of households in West Alabama who seek emergency food assistance and receive food stamps report that their food stamp allocation runs out by the third week of the month,” the survey revealed. And “[m]ore than 13,000 children at risk of hunger in West Alabama live in families that earn too much to qualify for SNAP (food stamps) or free/reduced priced meals at school.”

These realities are present throughout Alabama. The state consistently ranks in the bottom five nationally on indicators closely connected to health and nutrition, like infant mortality and life expectancy. In 2024, Alabama was ranked the sixth unhealthiest state in the U.S. Yet that same year, state officials declined to participate in a federal program providing millions of dollars in summer food aid to hungry children.

Where government programs leave holes, local food banks operated by churches and private nonprofits step in to funnel donated funds and food into the hands of residents in need. But requests for assistance regularly exceed what these programs can provide.

That imbalance became even more widespread after the temporary expansion of hunger benefits, approved by the federal government during the Covid-19 pandemic, ended in March 2023. Just months after the roll-back of SNAP benefits, the number of Americans who reported having too little food to eat increased from about 10% to 12%. “This is millions of people,” explained Northwestern University economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenback. “Even when you’re rolling back a pretty recent, temporary benefit, it often causes enormous pain.”

Community programs see this pain firsthand and work hard to provide relief. A few years ago, EJI joined that effort.

EJI staff bag groceries for community residents in Montgomery.

Opened in spring 2018, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice sits atop Montgomery’s Cottage Hill neighborhood. Surrounded by a garden of colorful blooming flowers and overlooking the State Capitol, the suspended steel columns bear silent witness to thousands of lives lost to racial terror lynching during the 19th and 20th centuries. In a nondescript warehouse across the street, EJI staff work to feed families struggling in today’s Alabama.

“The pandemic lethally exposed the cruel reality of poverty in America,” says Bryan Stevenson, EJI founder and executive director. “The poorest of the poor died, suffered, and struggled much more than other communities in states like Alabama. Hunger and barriers to health care became even more significant barriers to opportunity in ways that made it clear that this is a justice issue, and consequently an issue for EJI.”

Initially a nonprofit law office representing individuals on Alabama’s death row who had no access to attorneys, EJI was founded in 1989. Over time, the organization’s work expanded to include exposing inhumane and abusive prison conditions, challenging excessive sentences imposed upon children, and providing re-entry assistance to clients returning from prison. Through that work, EJI staff witnessed firsthand the immediate obstacles facing individuals working to rebuild their lives after incarceration, and the challenges they and their families encountered in trying to meet the most critical and basic needs.

In spring 2022, through a review of available research and outreach to programs already operating in the state, EJI took stock of hunger in Alabama and examined how its own organizational resources could be leveraged to make an impact. That effort led EJI to make grants of support to nearly two dozen food banks, churches, community organizations, and relief programs providing anti-hunger services throughout the state. But the organization was also motivated to create its own direct-service program, putting money into the hands of families in need.

Launched in 2022, EJI’s Anti-Hunger Program invites applications from Alabama households facing food insecurity, evaluates their needs, and provides approved participants with a monthly, prepaid credit card loaded with $415. The card is restricted to purchasing food and other staple grocery items, but otherwise comes with few strings and little oversight.

“We wanted to empower individual heads of households to have the resources to address the problem of food insecurity in a way that works best for them,” Mr. Stevenson told the Montgomery Advertiser in January 2024. “By and large, I trust the heads of household to make good decisions about how to take care of their families, and that’s been reinforced by our experience with the families that we work with. They’ve been very, very capable and effective at making this enhance the quality of their lives.”

Community residents line up for EJI’s mobile grocery store.

One early participant, Kimberly Brown of Montgomery, received program assistance for four months.

“That card allowed me to still be able to pay my rent and go buy food, juice, and water,” Ms. Brown told the Advertiser. “My baby has to take a lunchbox to school every day. That allowed me to help make sure that she had a healthy lunch…It really, really helped me with the necessities that I just didn’t have at that time. Sometimes you need that extra help to push you on to the next step or just to fill up your fridge or your freezer.”

“I’m not the type to just reach out quickly for help,” she continued, “but when you need it, don’t be afraid to ask. It can be a game changer, a life changer. It was for me.”

Since its launch in 2022, EJI’s program has only grown—supporting 2,000 households in its first year and, to date, providing assistance to more than 6,000 Alabama households in total. That equates to more than 17,000 people, including more than 10,000 children.

EJI’s anti-hunger work began with a focus on the state’s Black Belt region, a largely rural area that struggles with persistently high rates of poverty. Early on, program participants were predominantly Black and living in rural communities—but over time, the program has expanded to assist participants in nearly every Alabama county and to include households spanning many racial and ethnic groups.

“While the number of applications we receive fluctuates, we consistently see a minimum of 1,000 families applying to be enrolled in our program on a monthly basis,” said Ayisha Abdur-Rahman, EJI’s Chief Operations Manager. “It’s not uncommon for us to see that number increase as we head into the holiday season or as families prepare for their children to eat more food at home during the summer months when school is not in session. There are times during those peak seasons that the number of applicants has doubled. Unfortunately, due to our limited resources, we are only able to approve about 10-20% of the families who apply.”

That demand is expected to rise.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration cut more than $1 billion in federal anti-hunger funding to school cafeterias and local food banks. In May, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that would cut up to $300 billion from the SNAP food stamp program—a program that more than 750,000 Alabamians (15% of state residents) relied on for food assistance in 2024. The Senate passed a version of the bill on July 1 after a tie-breaking vote cast by the Vice President. The House passed the same bill on July 3 and the President signed it into law the next day.

“They’re choosing to cut food assistance for hungry families and hungry children and health care for the sick and disabled in order to give tax cuts to billionaires, and it’s pretty awful,” Carol Gundlach of Alabama Arise told Alabama Political Reporter. “It’s pretty deplorable.”

In more than two years of operating its direct-service program, EJI has interviewed thousands of Alabama residents experiencing food insecurity, visited every participant in their homes and communities, and fostered ongoing relationships that sometimes outlast formal program enrollment. Through that direct engagement, staff have gained insight into the sources of hunger in Alabama and the characteristics of families who stand to be impacted by ongoing reductions to existing programs.

As of January 2025, at least 97% of households participating in EJI’s program included children and 81% self-identified as single-parent households. When describing the circumstances creating food insecurity in their homes, participants named unemployment and underemployment (35%); high medical costs (13%); transportation, housing, and/or domestic violence (9%); or a recent increase in family size (8%). In 15% of participant households, grandparents were raising minor children, and in another 3% of households, adults were caring for minor nieces, nephews, brothers, and/or sisters.

“I am a cancer patient,” one Washington County participant shared. “I take treatment twice a month. We have been struggling trying to make it past the third week in having food. When I saw the text on my phone about a food card, I’m like, ‘Is that true? Are you serious?’ Cause I been praying, Lord please show us the way.”

“This card has been a blessing to me and my family,” explained a program participant living in Baldwin County. “My son lost his job and apartment and he has an autistic son. I was able to help provide groceries for them by sharing this card. I was able to share with my other son and his family also.”

Indeed, many program participants reported generously sharing the assistance obtained from EJI with relatives, neighbors, and church members, either by helping them buy food, or by buying and cooking food to share with community members in need. Program staff also regularly learned of other eligible households from program participants who selflessly urged EJI to consider assisting friends and neighbors they believed in even greater need than themselves.

“Being able to provide fresh, quality, and low cost groceries to the neediest of the needy and underserved communities across the state has been more than fulfilling,” said Sihle Mzongwana, a project manager with EJI’s Anti-Hunger Program. To the EJI team composed of staff with backgrounds in retail, management, and social work, the program they have developed is ripe for duplication.

“Most food assistance programs are rooted in a model that gets large quantities of excess food from companies, grocers, farmers, and similar sources,” Mr. Stevenson explained. “There are sometimes huge challenges in quickly getting food to the people who need it before the goods spoil, and the supply is not consistent or predictable. Other models that rely on government funding have become highly politicized and vulnerable to cuts, so people can find themselves losing their benefits with little notice and no recourse.”

“Ours is an intervention program rather than a charity program. We wanted to give people the ability to buy food with the kind of autonomy, flexibility, and predictability that we all want. Rather than giving people the goods we can get donated, we give them resources to be able to buy what they need. We’re enabling people to make their own decisions about how to feed their families, we see that it is working, and we urge other organizations—businesses, nonprofits, churches, or just groups of concerned individuals—to try making a similar impact at whatever scale they can afford.”

“Even if you can only help 50, 25, 10, or 5 families, it makes a difference. And it all adds up.”

Residents inside EJI’s mobile grocery store.

On a warm Wednesday afternoon this May, the EJI mobile grocery truck set up shop in Newbern, Alabama, just alongside the small local library and within a block of the log-cabin-style town hall. Over several hours, dozens of local residents waited in line in the spring sunshine to buy fresh groceries at discount prices. A large fan hooked up to a generator and seated in the bed of a green pickup truck helped the steady crowd keep cool.

“Apple, orange, strawberry,” one young girl recited, pointing to the grocery truck’s colorful exterior paint.

“And what are those letters?” prompted the woman holding her hand.

“E-J-I!”

In the course of meeting and speaking with program participants about their experiences utilizing the anti-hunger cards, the EJI team learned that many continued to face significant obstacles in accessing healthy and affordable food options. Even with the provided financial assistance, families living in communities with limited access to fresh produce have to travel 20 or more miles from home to find a grocery store selling produce, fresh meat, and other unprocessed food options.

In response, EJI added a mobile grocery component to its program—first with a refrigerated van that began traveling the state in October 2024, and now with a 48-foot mobile grocery store that allows community members to board the fully-stocked trailer and shop with a rolling cart as if in a real grocery market. With both the van and trailer, participants can buy brand-name staple items and goods EJI has acquired from local fruit and vegetable producers and other suppliers. Prices typically represent a more than 50% reduction over retail prices:

• 18 eggs for $2.50
• A gallon of milk or a loaf of bread for $1
• Five pounds of fresh pork chops for $5
• 24 ounces of fresh chicken wings for $2
• Canned green beans or corn for 25 cents each

Newbern is a small, rural community in Hale County, where 58% of residents are Black and nearly 1 in 4 people live below the poverty line. After Newbern’s first Black mayor was blocked from taking office in fall 2020, the largely unknown town became a topic of national news. Since settling a lawsuit and beginning his term last year, Mayor Patrick Braxton says he is most focused on serving his neighbors’ needs.

“It’s important to bring a change to this community, and not just to get the people some food,” he shared. “It’s important to show them there are people out here trying to help them, who care about them. Seeing something like that gives people hope.”

“I sure appreciate you all coming out here to help us today,” one woman in a purple t-shirt said as she carefully stepped out of the truck and took stock of her groceries already spread across the bagging table. “You should come on back and see us again next week!”

Many rural Black Belt counties have no grocery stores leaving families with the added burden of having to travel great distances to get fresh food items. EJI’s mobile grocery store parked in front of an abandoned Piggly Wiggly supermarket in Uniontown, Alabama.

EJI has so far taken its grocery vehicles to communities in Autauga, Bibb, Bullock, Chambers, Dallas, Fayette, Hale, Jefferson, Lee, Lowndes, Macon, Madison, Marengo, Monroe, Montgomery, Perry, Talladega, Tallapoosa, Tuscaloosa, Washington, and Wilcox counties. With the truck’s increased inventory capacity, the program has also been able to expand access. As discussed, EJI grocery vehicles now sell to individuals receiving direct program assistance and to needy community members who, after being screened on the spot, can be approved as “temporary participants” approved to buy from the truck with their own funds. That enables the program to serve even more households than it can supply with monthly grocery cards.

When the mobile grocery truck made its debut with an April 11 trip to Uniontown, Alabama, dozens of Perry County residents gathered to be part of the new launch.

“My Lord, this is a blessing!” one woman remarked at the site near Uniontown City Hall. Shaking her head in disbelief, she watched EJI staff bag her bananas, grapes, and much more. “I usually have to get a ride to the store more than 20 minutes away to buy any of this. And even when I can get there, I can’t buy nowhere near this much for what I spent today.”

After serving the last shopper and packing up, the EJI team parked in front of a vacant grocery store building in Uniontown’s downtown stretch and took a brief break to eat lunch and reflect on the day’s operations.

More than 30% of Perry County residents live below the federal poverty line, compared to 12.4% of Americans nationwide—and since the local Piggly Wiggly closed in 2018, Uniontown has been without a grocery store. Former Perry County Sheriff Billy Jones, who has worked to notify local residents and helped EJI staff administer the program in the area, repeatedly affirmed the community’s need for assistance both buying food and accessing food options that have not been sold nearby for years.

In most counties of operation, EJI’s program depends on the assistance and knowledge of local community leaders—whether elected officials, church leadership, or well-known residents with deep roots and networks in the counties where they live. Mr. Jones, who retired earlier this year after more than 30 years in law enforcement, spent the day helping community residents load their cars and fielding questions from curious passersby seeking to learn more.

EJI staff assist community residents in Montgomery.

“We are proud to have such shining examples working with us to help their communities,” said Anthony Ray Hinton, a former EJI client who now works as a Community Educator. Exonerated and released from Alabama’s death row in 2015, Mr. Hinton is a noted author and anti-death penalty speaker who has also taken on a major role in helping to administer the Anti-Hunger Program in several Alabama counties.

Heading into its third year of operation, EJI plans to continue evolving and growing in its ability to address hunger in Alabama—both by successfully fundraising to cover its own program costs, and by encouraging new and ongoing work by other Alabama organizations committed to addressing hunger.

“When I was first brought on as a Project Assistant, we would deliver food gift cards to the homes of some participants and others would meet us at centralized locations,” said Derick McClendon, a member of the EJI team since June 2024. “Now the Mobile Grocery Store has come to fruition. When the participants enter the Mobile Grocery Store, they are in awe of what they see. I have heard them say, ‘This looks like a store,’ ‘These prices are unbeatable,’ ‘I am going to be able to feed my family for a week or two,’ ‘I thank God for y’all and this program,’ ‘This is all I owe for all of these items?’ and many other kind gestures. I am proud to be a part of this team and part of the EJI family.”

Program participants’ gratitude for EJI’s assistance comes freely and often, through thankful words expressed to Mr. McClendon and other staff, a clutched hand or a warm embrace, an offered tip or a compliment, and sometimes in a written note of appreciation.

“When a person is drowning they are looking for help,” one Baldwin County participant shared in a message of thanks after their enrollment period ended last year. “Someone to throw them a life jacket and pull them up, up above the rising waters. Perhaps pull them to shore to just watch the water and no longer tread the waters while their legs frantically move in effort to simply stay above. You have given my family the opportunity to be on the shore and for a moment enjoy the sun and the calmness. Thanks.”