Renée Jellerette is usually her family’s financial backstop.

When a hurricane devastated Jamaica late last month, she desperately wanted to help family and friends there living without running water, power or enough food.

But Jellerette, who for 17 years has worked at the National Institutes of Health’s director’s office, got furloughed on Oct. 1 and hasn’t been paid in more than a month thanks to the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history.

Now she’s struggling to feed herself and her son.

“I should be winding down my career towards retirement, and now I don’t know if I’m gonna be, who knows, homeless at this point,” said Jellerette.

On Friday, Jellerette accepted food at Montgomery County’s federal workforce career center in Wheaton, which officially opened in early October to help federal workers and contractors find new jobs and access county services.

She was one of 100 people to sign up for the first food distribution event at the center, which is run by WorkSource Montgomery. The workforce development agency recently partnered with Manna Food Center, the largest food distribution organization in the county.

Like Jellerette, many of those who came to take food home had spent their careers helping others — as public servants and donors — and at least one used to give money to Manna.

Donna, who works in the Department of Health and Human Services and declined to provide her last name for fear of jeopardizing her job, said that she has donated to Manna for years. Friday was the first time she came for food herself.

“It feels weird,” she said. “I really questioned whether I would do this or not, thinking, ‘Oh, maybe I should just let someone who’s more needy do it.”

She eventually decided that “everyone needs a little help” sometimes.

Rising demand

Staff at the career center said the plight of federal workers has grown increasingly dire. Demand is rising, they said, for help with rent, mortgages, utility bills and groceries.

The center first intended to hold one-on-one orientation sessions with visitors, but now hosts group gatherings to avoid long wait times.

When WorkSource Montgomery sent an email and mobile alerts about Friday’s food drive, its 100 slots filled up in less than an hour.

Some people who didn’t sign up arrived asking for food, including a mother and her children. But Manna Food Center staff had to turn them away. They only had enough food to give to those who had registered.

Running out of food

WorkSource Montgomery staff said Friday that food distribution events have become more frequent as organizations try to meet rising demand in the county — Manna, for example, has been distributing about 35% more food.

Managing director Steve Corrozi said he expects the higher demand to last “indefinitely.” Over the course of a year, the additional distributions would cost the nonprofit about $1 million.

Manna and WorkSource Montgomery plan to distribute food on four of the next five Fridays, excluding the day after Thanksgiving.

At the career center, food recipients pulled into a parking lot where Manna staff and volunteers loaded each car with a box of dry goods, a box of produce and a dozen eggs.

Many on the drive-through receiving line declined to be interviewed, for fear of risking their federal jobs.

One woman, who declined to give her name but said she worked for the Department of the Treasury, said she doesn’t know whether she’ll have a job to return to once the government reopens. Even if she does, she worries she won’t receive back pay.

She said the food she collected Friday has, for now, given her one less thing to worry about.

“We have ingenuity,” she said. Whatever is in the box, she said, she’ll be able to plan “at least a week to two weeks of meals.”

Another federal employee, furloughed from the Department of Health and Human Services, said the Manna food distribution was the fourth they’d been to that week.

They’re trying to bring in enough food for a household of three and continue studying for a master’s degree.

The lost paycheck forced them to dip into their savings. And on Friday they had to use credit to cover rent. They plan to draw down their savings to pay off the card at the end of the month so their credit score doesn’t take a hit.

But the end of the month is also when tuition is due.

“I’m drained,” they said. “It’s just an emotional rollercoaster to be let go, reinstated, to let go again, to be furloughed, and then they’re saying no back pay.”

Jellerette — who in addition to the help she usually sends to Jamaica also assists her mother, a sister who lives in a nursing home and two sons trying to establish themselves in adulthood — is watching her bills pile up.

As a furloughed worker, she qualified for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and applied last month. But the Trump administration has slashed the program.

“I got a little benefits card, but there’s nothing on it,” she said, “and I don’t know when there will be.”