Nelly Orellana was trying to eat more.

She started making up to six small meals a day after she learned in a class at her Takoma Park senior living facility that a better diet could help her manage her diabetes. On Monday, she woke up with $30 left in food stamps, which she expected to keep her fed through Nov. 17, when they were set to replenish.

She didn’t know the funds weren’t expected to renew until a journalist told her.

There was no letter from the state of Maryland. No calls from her three daughters, each working to put food on the table for their own children. No insight from fellow Spanish-speaking neighbors in her building who also didn’t understand what was happening.

Although the uncertainty surrounding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program became a talking point for government officials and across news outlets, its future changing by the hour, the turmoil remained a mystery to some recipients — the state’s most vulnerable residents.

“I have no plan,” Orellana, 70, said Monday in Spanish through her neighbor’s grandson, who helped interpret the interview.

“I don’t know that anyone is worried about me, and it makes me think, ‘If I go hungry, will anybody care?’”

Doris Williams, a resident coordinator at Victory Tower, where Orellana lives, said she posted a two-page warning in English by the building’s elevators Friday signaling the government shutdown could affect funding for food stamps, which feed 1 in 9 Maryland residents. That number is even higher at Victory Tower, where nearly 90% of the residents use SNAP. Williams worried that many of the residents were unaware. She said the flyer encouraged them to “explore other food options,” such as local pantries.

Orellana, who retired in 2011 after a failed cornea transplant blurred her vision, never saw the bulletin. Without family to support her financially, she said she’s barely getting by on $900 a month in Social Security and $130 in SNAP — a below-average deposit compared to other Marylanders.

Her neighbors, Maria De La Cruz, 74, and Lazarra Dadd, 77, also rely on SNAP to pay for groceries. Neither saw the bulletin nor heard from the state that their benefits were expected to end amid the shutdown. They also hadn’t heard about the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s plans to fund half the program or Gov. Wes Moore’s promise to fund the rest.

As of Wednesday, it was unclear whether their benefits, both set to renew Saturday, would be delayed and, if so, to what degree.

“I’ll find a way to live whether they give it to me or not,” said Dadd, who receives $40 each month in food stamps and spends most days hungry. “What I’d do with $50!”

De La Cruz said she heard about changes to food stamps from television news in recent weeks, but it was too stressful to keep watching. She receives $295 each month in SNAP benefits and leans on her son for help on occasion.

Williams said she’s tried to meet with especially vulnerable residents at the affordable senior living complex in recent weeks, but even she has struggled to understand the latest changes to the program.

Victory Tower manager LaDonna Battle said her team members didn’t take steps to warn SNAP recipients of an anticipated funding lapse until hours before it was expected to kick in Nov. 1 because they were overwhelmed with end-of-year inspections and reports. She and her staff posted the notice alerting residents to SNAP changes in English because they were concerned about a faulty Spanish translation.

“We’re told we need to hire a person so it’s legally saying the right things,” she said, adding that in the interim she’s used the internet to communicate with Spanish-speaking residents. “I pray that it’s saying what I’m hoping it says.”

With shifts to the program occurring at breakneck speeds, the Maryland Department of Human Services has not been sending letters to SNAP customers’ homes, a method previously used to reach older people and people who struggle with internet access.

“With daily, if not hourly, changing guidance from the Trump administration and new court rulings, information may change from the time we mail notices to the time customers receive them,” agency spokesperson Benjamin Shnider said. They have tried to keep people informed through email, social media, community partners, press releases and more.

Orellana said she doesn’t watch the news, instead opting for gospel channels. She hasn’t been able to walk much farther than her 400-square-foot unit in years. The native El Salvadoran who once joined protests to protect the rights of her fellow immigrants in Washington now putters around her apartment on swollen joints.

“I’ve contributed my whole life to this [SNAP] program, working for other people,” said Orellana, who was a child care provider and caretaker for 40 years. “It’s surprising me that I may not get it when I need it.”

Her space feels like a shrine to the children she helped raise. Photo albums are filled with images of the families whose nine kids she looked after in the Montgomery County area. At least a dozen portraits of Orellana’s own children and grandchildren hang on her bedside wall.

Her youngest, 32, was recently furloughed from a job in the federal government, but a few times each month she still delivers her mother’s groceries from Aldi using Orellana’s electronic benefits transfer card. Most of the foods are soft — milk, yogurts and eggs — after therapy for cancer in her lymph nodes a decade ago left her throat swollen.

Even without money for groceries, her faith remains strong: “Dios proveerá,” she says, or “God will provide.” “I know others have it worse,” she said.

De La Cruz has been especially helpful to Orellana in recent weeks, bringing her food from a local pantry and helping her clean after a surgery on her hands left Orellana barely able to move. “She’s an angel,” Orellana said.

On Wednesday, after a doctor’s appointment to remove fluid from Orellana’s knees, De La Cruz brought chicken and rice.

“It smells beautiful,” Orellana said, clapping her hands as she removed the foil covering a small bowl.

“I’m so hungry.”