BELFAST—Last week, on November 1, when the distribution of SNAP benefits for millions of people stopped, neighbors stepped up their support with many donating to food banks. In Belfast, Nautilus Seafood & Grill's owners, Shawna Aitken, Shelly Trisch, and Mary Marchini, came up with a novel idea to help in their own way. They created a Community Menu available for takeout only, free of charge to every SNAP recipient who presented their card to the host. 

Their motivation for doing this was simple: Every human deserves to eat. Their menu offered warm, comforting meals such as fish and chips, a chicken sandwich, clam chowder with a salad, or the vegetarian option of pasta marinara or butter with garlic bread.

They began offering this special menu on the first day, which drew 56 people to the restaurant. By the second day, when 61 people showed up and the restaurant's capacity was getting stretched, the three owners knew they were going to need some help.

"Clearly, there is a giant need here, and we asked how we could continue to sustainably help people," said Marchini. "A lot of people reached out to us and asked how they could help. We have a lot of community support, and we know how strong Belfast is. They will show up for us. So, we as a restaurant had to figure out what makes sense, what was a reasonable amount of money to request as a donation, and honestly, any time you have to ask for help, it's hard. But we came up with $10 as a base for each SNAP meal. If customers are already here having a meal, we made it easy for them to add that amount onto their bill."

In addition, Marchini said people have been dropping by and calling in $10 donations.

Whereas the Community Menu was previously available Tuesday through Sunday, the owners realized they needed to limit the days to reach their goals, and the program is now only available on Saturday and Sunday.

"We figured that if kids are getting free breakfast and/or lunch on the weekdays, it made more sense to offer our program on the weekends, especially since the Belfast Soup Kitchen is closed on weekends,"  she said. 

"There's no stigma here; just flash your card," she said. "We just want to feed people."

The response from people who have been able to come in and feed their families has had an emotional impact on the staff.

"People coming in [for the SNAP meals] are so kind, so grateful," Marchini said, "I'm a lady of a certain age, hormones are starting to do things; I will ugly cry."

To learn more about what Nautilus is doing, stay tuned to their Facebook page.