“For your information, USDA has confirmed SNAP benefits will be available as normal for March,” Brandy Basnight Mann, Tyrrell County Director of Social Services, announced Monday morning, Feb. 4.

SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly food stamps) benefits for February were issued Jan. 20 while the federal government was shut down and the future was uncertain.

The March benefits announcement comes in the wake of an agreement among federal leadership to keep the government functioning temporarily.

USDA “was silent on how things would happen in the event of another federal shutdown,” cautioned David Locklear, deputy state director of Social Services in Raleigh.