A week before this past Thanksgiving, four women jumped on a video call. This was the first time all of them would be in the same place at the same time.
"I know we've all had a lot of our own stuff going on, and working, and Grocery Buddy," Meag Sargent says. "I'm super proud of us."
A month earlier, Sargent put out a post on Facebook and Instagram looking to help when people lost their SNAP benefits, known as FoodShare in Wisconsin.
"She posted about how she was building a list of people who might be experiencing food insecurity around the SNAP lapse, and then another list of people, of potential buddies, who would consider sponsoring these families," Katie Goodwin, one of Sargent's high school friends, says. "And directly connecting them."
Goodwin DM’d her looking to help where she could.
Soon, Sargent, Goodwin, Jenny Holmdohl and Michelle Croak started MKE Grocery Buddy. The goal of the group is simple: feed people. How it works is pretty straightforward: you can sign up either as a grocery buddy — someone in need of help — or to support a grocery buddy.
"We asked just kind of like: 'What do you need for support?'" Goodwin says, showing the form applicants fill out. "There are two ways of connecting our neighbors, either through a direct financial gift or purchasing and dropping off groceries. Our request forms ask if there are any allergies, specific challenges and just some contact information. And then we match them with the donor of similar preferences."
The website is super clear on how to access their services and even includes resources and an FAQ page.
"We've really mobilized and formalized a lot of this because if you have to both ask and give aid, you want it to be a reputable system you're working within," says Goodwin.
They've built this functioning mutual aid site, doing the work of a government entity in a matter of weeks. As of mid-November, the group had already matched up 72 pairs of people — single parents working multiple jobs and people with disabilities are just some of the people they see.
Along the way, Goodwin has also learned a lot about how restrictive SNAP benefits can be.
"Like only fruits, vegetables, meats are available. You can’t even get a rotisserie chicken," she says. "Or cleaning products or paper towels."
Goodwin says she’s lived an incredibly privileged life, attending some of the best private schools. But things changed for her and her family her senior year of college. That’s when her dad lost his job.
"He had a medical emergency and his whole life he'd been a health care CEO," Goodwin says. "He had worked at all of these expensive hospitals, big paychecks, and suddenly, after this medical event, the only job he could sustain with his physical disability was at a grocery store."
What happened next was that the family received a lot of help. People stepped up, making sure they had what they needed. That experience left a mark on Goodwin.
"All of us, every single one of us, are so much closer to being in a situation where we need support than any of us are ever to being a billionaire," Goodwin says.
SNAP and FoodShare benefits were eventually restored, but there are still a lot of people experiencing food insecurity.
Food pantries still seeing increased demand
Matt Stienstra is with Feeding America, one of the local food banks that provide food to local pantries. He remembers hearing about Grocery Buddy and the panic around people losing their benefits.
"Milwaukee County stepped up big time, making unprecedented investments with a $150,000 investment into food security. And Milwaukee City and Milwaukee County came together to hold some walking food drives, where tens of thousands of dollars...has been raised to help support families," says Stienstra. "But I think what's important for everyone to realize is that families are still struggling a lot."
Stienstra says this isn’t a coincidence. After the pandemic, the federal government started to unwind a lot of nutritional programs that were in place. In Wisconsin, this has meant a reduction of $1.3 billion in food and food benefits. That’s coming at the same time the price of groceries continues to rise.
"We hosted a focus group of some people that visit food pantries," he says. "And it was made incredibly clear that the economic situation for so many families in Milwaukee and across Wisconsin remains dire, and people still don't know where the next meal is coming from."
Stienstra says the need for food pantries is still incredibly high, rivaling or exceeding the need during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, about 12% of the state experienced food insecurity. That number was around 15% in Milwaukee County, and much higher in Milwaukee, where nearly one in four kids experience food insecurity.
"We know that the best way to solve hunger is to make sure that everyone has a job that pays them enough money," Stienstra says. "The best way to solve hunger is not through the food pantry system."
With that said, there are food pantries in every neighborhood of the city. This includes pantries like NourishMKE, which opened its new flagship location on 13th and Cherry this past May. Val MacMillan is the executive director there.
"We've often served people historically who do use SNAP, but we also serve a lot of people who don't qualify for SNAP," MacMillan says.
She says she noticed a big increase in food needs during the shutdown and loss of SNAP benefits. She also expects more of the same next year.
More pressure coming in 2026
"What we experienced in November is the beginning of, I think, some more, larger issues that we're going to start seeing in 2026," she says. "We're going to see our community even harder hit in the area of food access."
MacMillan points to a couple of issues: work requirements set in place for SNAP and Medicaid, the tariffs and continued inflation — including in the price of groceries. And there are other parts of people’s budgets that are about to get pinched too, in a big way.
"Their health insurance premiums are skyrocketing...people we've talked to, thousands and thousands of dollars more, tens of thousands of dollars more for health insurance," MacMillan says. "That is going to be a massive hit for people and the first thing they start pinching pennies on is groceries."
She says your local food pantry is meant to build community, but it’s not supposed to be a solve-all for food insecurity.
Grassroots efforts step in
Back in Bay View, Katie Goodwin and the other women are finishing up their video call, planning out what to include on their MKE Grocery Buddy website, which is now humming. They talk about sustainability, and how they can automate pairing up food buddies. They all have jobs outside of this work.
"There are all these systems out there, and they're great — food banks, church meal drives, there’s SNAP," Goodwin says. "But within these systems and pillars that are holding up a huge support for food and food insecurity, there's a ton of gaps. And that's where I think our work continues even beyond SNAP coming back."
Goodwin sees Grocery Buddy as long-term mutual aid in Milwaukee. She, like the other women in the group, has a grocery buddy of her own. She says she didn’t know what to expect when getting paired up.
"When I emailed them, I said, 'Hey, I'm happy to give you $40 a week.' They responded and were like, 'I only need $40 for the month,'" Goodwin recalls. "You're told this narrative of 'Take, take, take,' but this person simply was brave enough to ask for help. The next day, I received an email that included a receipt for everything that that individual had bought."
Goodwin says her buddy didn’t need to do that, and she told them that too. How you spend money on the things you need is your business. She’s just in the position to be able to help. And who knows what the future will hold, and if she’ll be the one in need one day.
