Groceries Keep Climbing. In the North Country, Kids Are Feeling It Most.
Grocery prices rose again in October, and North Country families are running out of room in the budget. One in six local children doesn't always know where the next meal is coming from. Pantries from Watertown to Black River say they're seeing more working families, more military families and more kids.
By Jessica Hale, ClickNNY North Country Desk
NORTHERN NEW YORK — Grocery prices went up again last month, and in the North Country the people paying the steepest price are the smallest ones.
Across the region, about 9,260 children don't always know whether they'll get breakfast, lunch or dinner, according to the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York. That's roughly one child in six. And the pantries trying to fill the gap say the line now includes people who never expected to be in it: working parents, retirees and soldiers' families from Fort Drum.
The national picture
Food bought at the grocery store rose 0.4% in October, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday, the biggest monthly jump since April. Overall prices rose 0.4% too.
What went up in October:
- Beef: up 0.9% in one month
- Snacks: up 1.0%
- Fruits and vegetables: up 0.6%
- Dairy: up 0.6%
- Bread and cereal: flat
There's no official year-over-year number for October. The 2025 government shutdown stopped BLS from collecting prices that month, so the agency says it "cannot publish 12-month percent changes" for most items. The most recent annual figure, cited by the National Consumers League, put grocery prices up 2.9% over a year, with fruits and vegetables up 6.1%.
The strain shows up in surveys. More than half of Americans, 53%, now call grocery costs a major source of stress, according to an AP-NORC poll.
Here at home: prices up, help down
In the North Country, higher prices arrived at the same time as cuts to food aid.
Federal changes to SNAP, the program once called food stamps, took effect this year. The program faces roughly $186 billion to $200 billion in cuts over a decade, depending on the estimate, and adults up to age 64 must now work or volunteer 80 hours a month to keep benefits. That rule now covers parents whose youngest child is 14 or older. It used to stop at 18.
Starting in October, New York counties also began paying more of the program's costs. Jefferson County's added bill is estimated at more than $1 million. St. Lawrence County faces about $776,000, and its social services commissioner, Joseph Seeber, expects about 600 people there to lose SNAP, North Country Public Radio reported.
"It's going to be very difficult in the future years, and each year I believe it's going to get worse exponentially," Seeber told NCPR. "We're already seeing that on food banks."
The Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York says demand across its service area has risen 14% since July 2025. Food insecurity is highest in St. Lawrence, Jefferson and Franklin counties.
The kids
"Food insecurity is on the rise. Especially amongst children and it's troubling," Regional Food Bank CEO Tom Nardacci told NCPR in August.
His numbers for the North Country and Adirondack region:
- 9,260 children facing food insecurity, about 17.6% of all kids
- About 37,920 people overall, about 12.9% of the population
- About 600 kids now getting food shipped straight to their homes by the food bank
School is the safety net that works. New York now serves free breakfast and lunch to every public school student, which Nardacci called "a big step." The trouble is the days when school is closed: weekends, holidays and summer. "What are we doing for kids right now who aren't in school?" he asked. The food bank is working with schools to set up pantries inside the buildings.
There's a second risk. Many students qualify for free meals automatically because their family is on SNAP or Medicaid. When families drop off SNAP, schools lose that easy count, which can make it harder for high-poverty schools to keep serving everyone free, the Food Research & Action Center has warned.
Nardacci also pointed to distance. In parts of the region there's no grocery store nearby. "A family that has one car would have to travel many miles to get to a store," he said.
The faces in line
A soldier with a new baby. Donato Nigro is on active duty at Fort Drum. When NCPR met him this summer at Urban Mission in Watertown, it was his first time at a food pantry. He and his wife had just had a daughter.
"We've been having a hard time keeping up with the food on top of all the other bills," Nigro told NCPR. "We just need like staples, you know, like flour, sugar, eggs, milk, butter, the basics basically, bread."
Families choosing between food and lights. Urban Mission, the largest pantry in Jefferson County, has seen 600 more families in the past year, client services director Amy Klemgard said. "We're seeing a lot more people who are working families who just can't afford groceries and electricity and gas," she told NCPR. "People are having to choose between eating and paying their electricity bills so it doesn't get shut off."
Receptionist Hillary Collins put the jump at "probably by 20% or 30%." Urban Mission now runs its pantry like a small grocery store, so people can pick what their family will eat.
A single mom doing the math. Cassie Shannon, 41, volunteers 30 hours a month at the Canton Neighborhood Center pantry to keep her SNAP benefits, about $180 to $200 a month. A pantry box every two weeks "doesn't supply a two-week supply of food really," she told NCPR.
"So, what are the families supposed to do with no food stamps," she asked, "if all these neighborhood centers and food pantries can't afford to feed everybody?"
A pantry bracing for the wave. In Canton, Connie Jenkin keeps shelves stacked as high as she can at the Church and Community Program pantry. She calls it her "wall of food." "I've always been afraid of a tsunami and tried to prepare for just a full onslaught of need," she told WWNY.
Black River: a pantry at Fort Drum's door
Less than a mile from Fort Drum's gates, on LeRay Street in Black River, members of Covenant Church run a free food pantry open to anyone who needs it. You don't have to be a church member, meet an income limit or live in a certain town. It's an in-network partner of the Food Bank of Central New York, which supplies pantries across Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties.
Because of where it sits, it serves two communities at once: soldiers and military families from Fort Drum, many of them young, far from home and living on junior-enlisted pay, and longtime Black River and Jefferson County residents squeezed by the same rising bills.
The pantry is open the second and fourth Saturday of every month, from noon to 2:30 p.m. It offers more than canned goods: fresh produce, meat, frozen food and cereal, the kind of groceries that turn into real meals for a family with kids. Sign-in is a quick computer check-in. The building has parking and is wheelchair accessible. Details are at covenantchurchny.com or (315) 783-5136.
Disclosure: ClickNNY publisher Stephen Bryant is a pastor at Covenant Church.
Where to get help
- Covenant Church Food Pantry, 28060 LeRay St., Black River: second and fourth Saturday of each month, noon to 2:30 p.m.; fresh produce, meat, cereal, canned and frozen food; open to everyone; a Food Bank of Central New York partner. (315) 783-5136, covenantchurchny.com
- CAPC Mobile Food Pantry, Fort Drum: 9797 Constitution Blvd.; (315) 782-4900, capcjc.org
- Urban Mission, Watertown: Jefferson County's largest pantry.
- School meals: every New York public school student can eat breakfast and lunch free. Ask your school about weekend food or an in-school pantry.
- Find a pantry near you: call 211, or check the Food Bank of Central New York (Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties) or the Regional Food Bank (Franklin, Clinton and Essex counties).
- SNAP help: your county Department of Social Services can screen you for work-rule exemptions. St. Lawrence County alone handles about 20 medical exemption requests a week.
How to help
Pantries say the most useful gifts are money, which stretches further at food bank prices, and kid-friendly staples: cereal, peanut butter, shelf-stable milk and easy-open snacks for weekends and school breaks.
Sources
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Consumer Price Index, October 2026 (Nov. 10)
WWNY: As new SNAP rules take effect, Canton food pantry fears "tsunami of need" (March 26)
K-12 Dive: School meal participation at risk from SNAP cuts, FRAC reports
National Consumers League: Rising grocery prices continue to hammer American families
Reported by ClickNNY and reviewed by an editor before publication.
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