Volunteers Donate Over 100,000 Pounds Of Food To Coast Guard Families During US Government Shutdown

Jan 26, 2019 by apost team

Nearly one month ago, United States President Donald Trump effectively laid off 800,000-odd federal employees temporarily because the federal spending budget the House of Representatives tried to pass didn't contain $5.7 billion allocated to the construction of a wall to separate Mexico and the United States.

Members of the Coast Guard belong in that 800,000-odd-strong cohort, though they're forced to work for free. You won't believe how these kind-hearted people helped make countless Coast Guard members' day.

January 11 was supposed to be the first payday of the year for Coast Guard members. However, thanks to the fact that President Donald Trump is holding out on those 800,000 hard-working, country-serving federal employees, Coast Guard workers saw nothing but zeroes on their pay stubs from January 11. 

Unable to remove themselves from their posts, these military members are unable to find work elsewhere in the interim to feed, clothe, shelter, and otherwise protect their families.

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Take Amber Broadway, for example, the wife of a Coastie - it's a slang term for Coast Guardsman. The mother of two hungry, growing adolescent boys, Amber recently found herself forced to seek help from local food pantries to keep herself and her pair of sons fed.

"There’s a lot of talk of, ‘Well, you’ll get paid.’ Or, ‘It’ll come eventually.' And that’s okay. It will come eventually. And we will be very grateful when it does, but at the same time, it’s scary, because my kids need to eat today. Not eventually."

A lifelong New Englander, Amber Broadway was overjoyed to learn that countless people from her local area had collectively provided upwards of 100,000 pounds of food to the immediate family members of Coast Guardsmen.

Unfortunately, it's not clear how long the partial government shutdown will last. This means that Coast Guardsmen and other federal employees who are forced to work without getting compensated could go without pay for weeks, if not months!

United States President Donald Trump has claimed that he will not budge on his holdout in the name of securing $5.6 billion to partially fund the wall he promised as part of his presidential campaign in 2016.

Imagine being forced to work without pay. Although the Coast Guardsmen will eventually be paid for their work, they may not get their checks anytime soon. Do you know anybody directly affected by the current partial government shutdown? Pass this heartwarming story along.