CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn and Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine visited Albemarle County on Tuesday, taking part in a discussion about food insecurity while campaigning for fellow Democrats Sen. Mark Warner and 5th District House of Representatives candidate Tom Perriello.

A cozy upstairs room in the Loaves and Fishes Lambs Rd. food pantry was the gathering place for a conversation that drew a direct line between policies of the Trump administration, including the war in Iran, and affordability issues throughout the country.

“People get the direct connection between the (Iran) war and gas prices and food prices,” Warner said, telling the audience that Democrats have a plan to address those issues, starting with ending the war. “I think there will be reform, and the first thing we need to do is halt this illegal war, and I think the voice of the people will echo that next Tuesday.”

Warnock said he made the trip to Virginia because of the significance the commonwealth’s election on Nov. 3 will hold toward determining which party controls Congress.

“This is a moral moment in America,” Warnock said. “It’s about our values, it’s about what kind of country we are, and as you’re seeing all of this pain being unnecessarily created by Washington, this is the people’s moment to let their voices be heard saying enough is enough.”

He said he sees similar conditions in Georgia to what is happening in Virginia and noted, it’s clear the region is not suffering from a “poverty of resources, but of moral imagination and courage.”

“We need what Dr. (Martin Luther) King called a revolution of values,” Warnock said. “For the money that’s being spent on this war, we could have provided pre-K for every 4-year-old in America. Those same families are suffering from food insecurity. These same families are suffering from lack of access to health care.”

All five pointed at the institution of H.R. 1, that President Trump termed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” to blame for cuts in SNAP benefits, and Medicaid cuts expected after the election.

Loaves and Fishes Executive Director Jane Colony Mills, who hosted the event, said a recent hunger survey by the Virginia Federation of Food Banks, No Kid Hungry and a number of other partners produced a “Hunger in America” study.

“It said there’s 42% of people in Virginia who have faced food insecurity in (the 2024), which I found just stunning because the number we’ve been using is 12%,” Mills said.

She noted Loaves and Fishes this year is averaging 12,000 people a month coming to them for help, which is a 173% increase since 2020. Mills noted those people come to the facility and load up with a week’s worth of food twice a month, which means they are able to provide half the monthly food needs for those families. She said SNAP is what provides the other half, which is why families who lose those benefits will be so severely affected.

Mills also noted only 27% of eligible Virginia households are enrolled in SNAP, as there are many hurdles that include proof of income and expenses and proof of working 80 hours a month or schooling. She said some people may face a language barrier as the 15-page SNAP application is only available in English.

“So just imagine if English isn’t your first language or you don’t read English, because these are all the things that we see here,” she said. “We see people who cannot read their own language, can’t write, and so all of us in the charitable food world have to kind of accommodate these different needs, and that includes the SNAP program.

Kaine said the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was cutting benefits from the poor to give tax cuts to the rich, and he and Warner said Republicans are unwilling to reduce those tax cuts.,

“You can shave a little bit off this massive tax cut for the wealthy and soften the blow on the SNAP benefits, but they wouldn’t do that either,” said Kaine. “We need a priority shift. We need a value shift.”

Perriello, the last Democrat to represent Virginia’s 5th District, said food needs are at record highs, hitting their worst marks since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“That may have been a natural disaster of pandemic, and this is a human created disaster and this is a choice in Washington to break things that were working,” said Perriello. “The food stamp program has been incredibly powerful not just for a lot of families that are struggling, but it helps our farmers, and almost all that is spent disproportionately with small business owners.

“We had a matching program in Virginia for fresh produce, and if you don’t have the initial food stamp you can’t get the produce match which is actually something in our farmers’ markets that get accepted,” he said.

Several of the speakers said health is an important factor in being food secure, and Clyburn said he’s seen in rural communities the great need for connection to health care and the internet.

“My late wife was a full shot a day diabetic and I can tell you having rural communities connected to the internet makes all the difference in the quality of health care,” Clyburn said. “The food is great, but the other things shouldn’t get lost either.”