'This is a bad idea:' Food banks criticize plan to replace food stamps with delivery system

“It’s just the wrong thing to do,” Sink said. “Simply handing somebody a box of food that doesn’t have fresh produce, where they have no choice over what goes in that box, is demoralizing and it may not be effective.”

On Monday, the Trump administration announced a plan to significantly reduce SNAP benefits. Under that proposal, more than 16 million homes would have half their benefits go toward the food box delivery program.

Sink says hunger is a complex issue and the move could do damage.

“It’s a web of pieces that a person is trying to put together enough money to pay for all the different things in their household and when you take one of those pieces away, one of those things can crumble,” she said.

The USDA said the food box plan would save billions of dollars, but Sink said the use of EBT cards actually benefits North Carolina in a big way.

“We know that there’s $2.2 billion to boost the local economy to North Carolina through the use of EBT cards,” Sink said.

Now, organizations like the Interfaith Food Shuttle are working to get their message out there.

“It’s just very alarming and that’s why we are banding together as food banks, as hunger relief organizations, as food policy councils to say, ‘this is a bad idea,’” Sink said. "Reducing the barriers to getting healthy, fresh foods is what we ought to be thinking about, not creating some logistical nightmare of distributing boxes of food that's not as healthy as what they can get from their local community."

The Food Bank of Eastern and Central North Carolina called SNAP a “cornerstone nutrition program” and said they would not be able to make up for the lost meals that would result from the program changes.