THE CENTER SQUARE — Virginia is getting ready to roll out a state-funded food assistance plan at the start of November to make sure families continue receiving help while the federal government shutdown drags on.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Monday that the new Virginia Emergency Nutrition Assistance initiative, or VENA, will use commonwealth dollars to temporarily replace federal SNAP benefits . The move follows his recent state of emergency declaration, which allows the commonwealth to use its own funds to keep food aid going while Congress remains gridlocked on a funding deal. The program kicks off in early November and will send weekly payments through existing EBT cards instead of monthly deposits. If a household normally gets $200 a month, they’ll see $50 added

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