At the time of writing — in the absence of eleventh-hour intervention by a judge who tens of millions of Americans are watching — SNAP funding is about to end for roughly 170,000 Mainers.

Even if this crisis is averted, legally or otherwise, it has shed valuable light on the precarity of day-to-day life for so many of us — and gone some way toward exposing mythmaking about who needs food stamps and why.

It also reminds us again, at the state level, of the need to be nimble and on guard. Whether by special session or otherwise, state government owes it to Mainers to ensure all relief options are exhausted and all bright ideas pursued.

Even then, even on our best day, the quantum of what’s being withdrawn is not something we can reach alone.

The historic cuts to federal SNAP benefits are set to take about $29 million out of Maine’s cash registers each month, according to the Maine Center for Economic Policy.

In response to the looming cut, there’s been an outpouring of private and community support in Maine. If only we could get the federal government to act with a fraction of the same civic responsibility and can-do urgency. 

“Reach out to government officials,” Dwayne Hopkins, executive director of the South Portland Food Cupboard, pleaded with readers of this newspaper last week. “Go to the source and fix the source. Right now, we’re just treating the symptoms.”

The source is looking harder and harder to “fix.” 

In the same category as the second Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigrants and homelessness, there’s a general antipathy toward the economically disadvantaged and their eligibility for “handouts.”

During a private call with congressional Republicans last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly referred to “level 10” on the “pain register,” a level dire enough to force the hand of Democrats on the stopgap bill. This anticipation of pain for the sake of brinksmanship is profoundly troubling.

There exists a stubborn, sour idea that to be in receipt of SNAP benefits or others like them is to be a freeloader, somebody with no interest in working a job while it’s possible to dine on the federal dime. If the coming cliff is to have a single silver lining, it might be that the cohort of people on SNAP will be revealed to be far more ordinary — and varied — than people who tout these attitudes would have us think.

In Maine, a glance at the official numbers should be corrective enough. More than 70% of the households on SNAP include at least one working adult, more than a third include a child. The average monthly benefit in our state? It’s about $175 per household member month. You don’t need us to tell you how far that stretches — or doesn’t — in today’s grocery aisles.

Although this is a federal failure in overwhelming need of federal repair, regular Mainers are going to special lengths to assist others.

By Wednesday, our staff was maintaining a running list of establishments, statewide, that have pledged support and coordination of that support. 

A heartening domino effect was in full swing. In Windham, a café named Hailey’s Kitchen announced it would offer free meals to families and individuals affected by the cessation of SNAP.

Such was the immediate demand, said owner Rebecca Coffin, that the prospect of honoring the promise induced a panic attack. It didn’t endure; once others in her community got wind of what Coffin was undertaking to do, they rallied around with offers of time and donations. The café has become a hub for local generosity and goodwill. That’s how these things work.

By the beginning of last week, the South Portland Food Cupboard was reporting a 20% increase in interested recipients. For now, said Hopkins, the corresponding spike in donations should meet demand.

And after that? It’s like he said. We must return, with a vengeance, to the sorry, sorry source.