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Friday, November 14, 2025
Broadway Cares Responds To SNAP Uncertainty With $1.5 Million In Emergency Food Grants
www.broadwayworld.com: Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS announced $1.5 million in emergency grants to support food service organizations nationwide, helping ensure meals and essential nutrition for millions affected by the federal government's uncertainty in providing November's SNAP benefits.
5 comments:
Lauren Dursky
said...
The fact that Broadway has a large nonprofit organization that targets people onstage, backstage, and audience to fund it is both phenomenal and a little sad. It’s a testament to the pay that the onstage and backstage people receive to be able to donate to organizations. It’s lovely to see people willing to donate after events and even in these hard times for so many people. I think that shifting to take care of the most vulnerable communities among us is a testament to the theater community and the empathy and belief that all people deserve to continue their stories even if they are far away from Broadway and the community collecting funds. I hadn’t realized that the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS supported organizations with grants outside of the LGBT+ community as I had thought their focus was on the communities that were reflected within their walls. It’s heartwarming to see other organizations step-up when our government has failed the most vulnerable among us.
I realized after posting this that they were two different articles and that it wasn't a failure of me waiting for my original comment to post. So to accurately respond to this article I've written a corrected response below:
This article contains more information than the other article from Broadwaynews.com. It gives more insight into the $1.5m and that it is that total, but there is a $100K amount that is being sent to Puerto Rico and Jamaica. The additional support to the 148 pantries they support annually is a huge amount of assistance. I have great appreciation for Broadway Cares and the other organizations that are able to step up and support when there are systems in place that fail due to the negligence of those who are supposed to be representing everyone. This article provides more insight into an organization that I knew supported the most vulnerable community at a time when everyone else thought that even minimal contact would mean a death sentence. Seeing that they support and offer funding for a host of programs that include the Women’s Health Initiative and family service organizations not only in New York but across the country provides a better insight than the other article that I responded to and is information that should be more readily available when touring performers are giving their speeches at then end of shows as I never would have known how broad their grants were without this article.
This is literally so insane to me. I think that people who say that the arts are irrelevant financially because it only has theoretical world input should give this a read, because it’s able to bring people together more than our government is at the moment. I think that Broadway (fundamentally, with the consumers, actors, and people who work backstage) itself is a grassroots movement (if you take the Broadway League and corruption out of the picture, of course.) Many people who work there barely make liveable wages yet they will always mobilize themselves and their audiences to help those in need. Why on EARTH doesn’t our OWN GOVERNMENT care about us??? (also side note: I think there’s a difference between philanthropy and charity. No one individual is funding all of this. If they were, that would be philanthropy. This is coming from the community, which our government has refused to serve.
The games that have been played with food insecure homes has shown how Trump does not care about the tenets that he flaunted as his goals. Decreasing food and grocery costs was one of Trump’s top points and for over forty million Americans he increased them catastrophically. The games have also increased strain on non-profit charitable organizations as they try to support food organizations that are ill-equipped to support the additional 9 out of 10 meals that food-insecure homes need that they should have gotten from SNAP. The cuts that these charities have previously had to reconcile earlier in Trump’s administration continue to show the strain that they are facing and it highlights the benefit that the funding could have helped accomplish. Thankfully there are organizations that will step up to stop people from starving because the major political party is unwilling to. Hopefully more people are aware of this now.
While the notion of this article is incredibly heartwarming, the story behind it is honestly heartbreaking. Broadway Cares is a nonprofit organization that you’ve bound to have heard of if you’ve ever seen more than one Broadway show. I’ve always been impressed with how dedicated theatre people have remained to the organization’s goal and mission, always seeing them promoted in countless ways for Broadway shows. The fact that an organization as impactful and dedicated to fighting AIDS is now supporting more money than they ever have ($1.5 million) to another cause shows the commradery of people wanting to help one another. The devastating truth is though, that in a world which makes any kind of sense, Broadway Cares should have absolutely no business getting involved with helping to fund SNAP recipients now stripped of their benefits. We’re talking about an extremely popular and necessary government initiative, now being seen as a “charity cause”, it’s horrifying and sad to say the least. Nonetheless, it still shows that Broaway Cares really does care.
5 comments:
The fact that Broadway has a large nonprofit organization that targets people onstage, backstage, and audience to fund it is both phenomenal and a little sad. It’s a testament to the pay that the onstage and backstage people receive to be able to donate to organizations. It’s lovely to see people willing to donate after events and even in these hard times for so many people. I think that shifting to take care of the most vulnerable communities among us is a testament to the theater community and the empathy and belief that all people deserve to continue their stories even if they are far away from Broadway and the community collecting funds. I hadn’t realized that the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS supported organizations with grants outside of the LGBT+ community as I had thought their focus was on the communities that were reflected within their walls. It’s heartwarming to see other organizations step-up when our government has failed the most vulnerable among us.
I realized after posting this that they were two different articles and that it wasn't a failure of me waiting for my original comment to post. So to accurately respond to this article I've written a corrected response below:
This article contains more information than the other article from Broadwaynews.com. It gives more insight into the $1.5m and that it is that total, but there is a $100K amount that is being sent to Puerto Rico and Jamaica. The additional support to the 148 pantries they support annually is a huge amount of assistance. I have great appreciation for Broadway Cares and the other organizations that are able to step up and support when there are systems in place that fail due to the negligence of those who are supposed to be representing everyone. This article provides more insight into an organization that I knew supported the most vulnerable community at a time when everyone else thought that even minimal contact would mean a death sentence. Seeing that they support and offer funding for a host of programs that include the Women’s Health Initiative and family service organizations not only in New York but across the country provides a better insight than the other article that I responded to and is information that should be more readily available when touring performers are giving their speeches at then end of shows as I never would have known how broad their grants were without this article.
This is literally so insane to me. I think that people who say that the arts are irrelevant financially because it only has theoretical world input should give this a read, because it’s able to bring people together more than our government is at the moment. I think that Broadway (fundamentally, with the consumers, actors, and people who work backstage) itself is a grassroots movement (if you take the Broadway League and corruption out of the picture, of course.) Many people who work there barely make liveable wages yet they will always mobilize themselves and their audiences to help those in need. Why on EARTH doesn’t our OWN GOVERNMENT care about us??? (also side note: I think there’s a difference between philanthropy and charity. No one individual is funding all of this. If they were, that would be philanthropy. This is coming from the community, which our government has refused to serve.
The games that have been played with food insecure homes has shown how Trump does not care about the tenets that he flaunted as his goals. Decreasing food and grocery costs was one of Trump’s top points and for over forty million Americans he increased them catastrophically. The games have also increased strain on non-profit charitable organizations as they try to support food organizations that are ill-equipped to support the additional 9 out of 10 meals that food-insecure homes need that they should have gotten from SNAP. The cuts that these charities have previously had to reconcile earlier in Trump’s administration continue to show the strain that they are facing and it highlights the benefit that the funding could have helped accomplish. Thankfully there are organizations that will step up to stop people from starving because the major political party is unwilling to. Hopefully more people are aware of this now.
While the notion of this article is incredibly heartwarming, the story behind it is honestly heartbreaking. Broadway Cares is a nonprofit organization that you’ve bound to have heard of if you’ve ever seen more than one Broadway show. I’ve always been impressed with how dedicated theatre people have remained to the organization’s goal and mission, always seeing them promoted in countless ways for Broadway shows. The fact that an organization as impactful and dedicated to fighting AIDS is now supporting more money than they ever have ($1.5 million) to another cause shows the commradery of people wanting to help one another. The devastating truth is though, that in a world which makes any kind of sense, Broadway Cares should have absolutely no business getting involved with helping to fund SNAP recipients now stripped of their benefits. We’re talking about an extremely popular and necessary government initiative, now being seen as a “charity cause”, it’s horrifying and sad to say the least. Nonetheless, it still shows that Broaway Cares really does care.
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