Boycott Bar food drive: Community serves up mutual aid in response to SNAP cuts

PHOENIX – The lights of Boycott Bar’s patio switched on, and married couple Marley DeGroodt and Jocy Suarez, two of the bar’s employees, immediately jumped in to help as Briana Brown wheeled in her first load of donations from her parked SUV.

That was the official start of the bar’s community food drive at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

Working together in the pink and purple glow of the bar’s neon signs and to the sounds of Britney Spears and late ’90s and early 2000s pop hits, DeGroodt and Suarez hustled over and helped unpack and organize the four large plastic tubs of nonperishables from the center of the concrete bar floor.

Within half an hour, a growing collection of donated groceries was amassed on Boycott Bar’s stage and sprawled across the black wooden booths that lined the interior gray brick and pink walls. Donors and bar staff carried in more gray and brown bags of foodstuffs as the sun set.

MORE: Nearly 1 million Arizonans face food insecurity without SNAP payments

“My heart breaks for anybody that feels like they’re going to starve, or feel hungry, or that they have to skip a meal so their kids can eat,” said Brown, recalling her experiences watching a single mother struggle and making meals out of cereal and mayonnaise sandwiches.

Audrey Corley, the owner of Boycott Bar and two other Phoenix bars, announced the food drive on Sunday via social media in response to recent cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program following the continued government shutdown.

President Donald Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Tuesday that he would deny funds toward federal food aid until “the Radical Left Democrats open up government,” threatening to defy a court order for his administration to use emergency funds to make SNAP payments.

Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, has since said the administration would comply with the court order. A federal judge in Rhode Island ruled SNAP benefits must be fully funded throughout November.

Corley said she knew her community was hurting in the face of SNAP cuts and that the “call in need” inspired her to reach out to her network and make the mutual aid a reality.

Corley thanked those who came out to donate, saying their involvement and contributions show a spirit of kindness within the community. However, she added that she was not caught off-guard by the turnout.

“I’m very proud of our community, but I know what type of people we are, and it’s a people of love, so I’m not surprised,” Corley said.

She also personally donated $1,000 toward grocery store gift certificates.

Other restaurants and bars in the Valley community have hosted food drives or provided free or discounted meals for those struggling without SNAP, including The Coronado,, Lovebite Dumplings, The Pemberton, Thunderbird Lounge and others.

Larger corporations, such as Carl’s Jr. and DoorDash, are offering similar programs.

DeGroodt and Suarez also said they know the anxiety of wondering where their next meal would come from, and how it feels to be supported during those times.

When Suarez got sick and was hospitalized in early 2024, before her employment at Boycott Bar, the two faced about six months of not knowing where their income would come from and realized they were closer to food insecurity than they thought, DeGroodt said.

When Corley learned about their situation after she called DeGroodt to ask what was going on, she immediately rallied the community to provide food when the couple needed it most. Nine people came by after her wife arrived home from the hospital, DeGroodt said.

“Now it’s time for us to be here for other people,” DeGroodt said. “Because this community: Audrey, Boycott, our team, the LGBTQ community, our friends, our family, they all came for us.”

“That little bit of kindness always belongs,” Suarez said. “The fact we’re able to stand here today and help the community volunteer, especially working at a place like this that is always giving, it’s incredible.”

This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.