Greer Dove’s days are packed with studying business and finance, as well as doing administrative work at college, along with caring for her eight-year-old daughter with special needs. But once a week, Dove, a single mother, makes sure to drop in at the food bank in California’s Marin County to pick up vegetables, fruit and other food. Along with the federal government’s food benefits, they keep her housing running. “We need this so we can keep functioning at a high level,” she says. “She loves fruit, so I make sure to get it,” she says of her daughter.

Dove, who is also looking for a full-time job, has worked in restaurants, event management, retail, television shows, office administration and payroll over the years. But she has been on the federal government’s Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) for six years, and with the food bank, for more than three years. Before she got food benefits, Dove fed her daughter all she had and skipped meals or looked around for snacks in the offices she worked at to get her through the day.