ESCANABA – Food distributions for hundreds of elderly and poor people in the Upper Peninsula are being impacted by the partial federal government shutdown.

Menominee-Delta-Schoolcraft Community Action Agency executive director Bill Dubord said they are being told that monthly supplemental food distributions can not be made until the government is completely reopened.

“We were informed by the Community Action Agency in Iron Mountain that they were advised that if they continued to operate that they were doing so at their own risk because of the government shutdown,” Dubord said. So we have distribution scheduled for next week that we thought the best course of action would be to cancel them until we knew more and not have people come and line up for something that isn’t going to show up.”

Distributions are cancelled for Tuesday in Menominee and Daggett, Wednesday in Rock, Thursday in Escanaba and Friday Hermansville. Dubord says it affects near 775 people.

“The food is probably valued between $30 and $40 per bag. They get one bag per month based on what’s available. So it certainly does not provide their total food for the whole month but it does supplement people on fixed incomes that are income eligible,” said Dubord.

It does not affect the daily home delivered meal program. Dubord says he expects to be able to continue the supplemental food distributions the day after the shutdown ends.

Head Start may be next on the list. Dubord says they will know next week if the partial federal government shutdown will affect the Head Start program in the area.