LACONIA — Courtney, 27, of Belmont is one of the 42 million Americans who are without normal SNAP benefits for November due to a federal government shutdown.
Holding her electronics benefit transfer card in one hand — which now has a balance of zero dollars — and with her driver’s license in the other, she sat in her Honda among hundreds who lined up in their vehicles five rows abreast at the Lakes Region Community College in Laconia parking lot Thursday to wait their turn at getting some of the state’s expanded food assistance in boxes loaded into cars.
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