New Jersey residents who utilize the SNAP program won’t be left in the lurch when federal SNAP emergency benefits end on February 28, as the state becomes the first to institute a minimum benefit allotment. Beginning March 1, all individuals and households participating in the program will receive no less than $95 a month to assist with the rising cost of groceries and fresh essentials.

Photo essays can be counter-narratives to affirm our shared humanity in racialized spaces designed to erase it. And Public Square Amplified's photojournalist, Brian Branch-Price, makes it look sublime. As always, his choice of the black-and-white medium delivers a beautiful portrait of a Black female rancher.

Tammy Harris comes from generations of harvesters. In the mid-twentieth century, her grandparents traversed the highways during the terror-filled Jim Crow era of racialized laws from New Jersey to Florida to harvest potatoes and other produce.

On a summer day in August, When Black Women Gather (WBWG), an international organization, took a cross-section of Black women from N.J. to learn how to shoot.

"It was a long-awaited adventure originally planned for Mother's Day, pre-pandemic,” said the founder of the organization, Helen Higgenbotham.

On a recent Tuesday afternoon, Mark Kearney pulls weeds to make room for the eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, beans, squash and melons that will grow on the three-acre urban oasis he manages.

Kearney, who was formerly incarcerated, says he feels alchemy working the land on the Newark-based Hawthorne Avenue Farm.

Gone are the days of skimming social media for the next farmers’ market. Students at Stockton, in collaboration with the New Jersey Food Democracy Collaborative (NJFDC), have created a website and interactive map showing where the closest market is, and which ones accept SNAP cards. The site also lets farmers know how to become SNAP authorized.

Senior citizens, children, and adults still can't afford regular access to food in New Jersey. An estimated 2 million people statewide are food insecure, and 22% of children in Essex county live below the poverty level, according Table to Table a New Jersey food rescue program founded in 1999.