Hi everyone! My family is in serious need of help. As many of you know, I'm a Ph.D. candidate in Emergency Management at North Dakota State University. I'm also a father of a nine-year-old son with my partner, Cassie. This fundraiser is mostly related to food expenses.

My family is on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. We typically receive enough benefits to fund groceries for the first half of the month for me, my fiancé, and my son. Unfortunately, due to the US federal government shutdown, there will be no federal food assistance coming Saturday, November 1st (barring some miracle). Therefore, my family will be extremely financially strained paying for food, particularly the first half of the month, when we pay for heavy bills such as rent, utilities, and car insurance. We have no savings. We are simply too poor to save significant amounts of money, and what expendable income we do have has gone to other things such as paying for car repairs last month, for example. We don't have luxuries such as cable, and we rarely can travel out-of-state to see family, unfortunately... we're pretty bare bones, paying for mostly essential things, including food.

This is why SNAP was so helpful to our needs. We've used food banks, but many food banks limit the number of times per month/year you can get food from them because of the needs of the many. We'll utilize them in November, I'm sure, but we also will need actual cash to help us choose the food, create meals, and feed ourselves appropriately. Our son in particular, who has autism, is a very picky eater, and so we have to get specific foods that he'll eat (and he does feeding therapy to try to expand his palette).

My family is basically in a very serious situation regarding affording food. I would not set up this GoFundMe unless I thought it was absolutely necessary for the health of my family. We hope that the government shutdown will end in November so that we can get benefits in December. But in the meantime, the need is definitely for November at the very least.

Any amount you can give will be very helpful and will go towards our food budget. We appreciate your assistance and kind words. Thanks.