ALBANY — Gov. Kathy Hochul is asking the 500 members of the Empire State Service Corps on SUNY campuses statewide to step up and focus their public service efforts on helping to provide food aid as the unprecedented pause in SNAP benefits drags on.

On Thursday, the governor formally urged all participants in the Corps, an AmeriCorps-recognized service organization, to step up Friday specifically at food pantries, soup kitchens and other food aid organizations.

“Three million New Yorkers are navigating food insecurity because of the confusion and dysfunction coming out of Washington,” Hochul said in a statement. “No one should go hungry or have to endure additional stress because the food assistance they expect and deserve is being used as a bargaining chip. Our state is stepping up: the Empire State Service Corps provides SUNY students with civic engagement opportunities to serve their communities, and during the crisis I am proud that these students are ready to help our most vulnerable.”

That means about 500 extra hands statewide, including 53 in the North Country, will be stepping up to help hand out food at regional food pantries and food banks, delivery programs, food collection efforts, soup kitchens and other organizations that are being heavily leaned on as millions of people go without the food stamps they need to fill in their food budgets.

Nearly every local food aid group has reported a spike in demand for their help, both before SNAP benefits cut off for the month on Nov. 1 and even more after. About 1 in 8 Americans relied on SNAP to fill in their grocery budgets each month in October, and more than $650 million in benefits was going to New York monthly by then.

But with the extended government shutdown that became the longest in history on Wednesday, funding for the 80-year-old food aid program ran out, and the Trump administration has acknowledged it will only roll out limited benefits for the month with an emergency fund, and on an indefinitely delayed schedule.

New York, like some other states, has sought to fill in this gap, with Hochul moving $100 million into food bank programs and other one-time grants for food aid groups. But the governor has said the state is unable to directly fund SNAP benefits or provide funds on the EBT cards used by those on the program.

Now, Hochul is asking the ranks of the Empire State Service Corps to assist at either their campus food pantries, which largely serve college students, or at community food banks.

Across the North Country, 53 students enrolled in the Service Corps this academic year — 25 at Plattsburgh, 16 in Potsdam, five at Canton, five at Clinton Community College and two at North Country Community College.