Wounded Warrior Project is putting real money where the promises usually end. The nonprofit announced $2 million in emergency grants this week to help veterans and military families who are staring at empty cupboards while Washington argues with itself.

The money will go straight to food banks, commissary gift cards, and emergency groceries — the kind of help you can hold in your hand, not another brochure telling you to “check the website.”

Six organizations will divvy up the funds: Armed Services YMCA, Hope for the Warriors, Military Family Advisory Network, Operation Homefront, Stronghold Food Pantry, and the Elizabeth Dole Foundation. All of them have logistics already in place to move food and aid quickly, not six months from now after some task force report.

Wounded Warrior Project says the need didn’t appear overnight. The shutdown just ripped the lid off what was already simmering.

According to the organization, four in ten wounded post-9/11 veterans they serve are already dealing with food insecurity — almost three times the national rate. And with the shutdown stopping paychecks for federal workers and tangling SNAP benefits, requests for help are spiking hard.

“Military families shouldn’t be wondering where their next meal is coming from,” retired Army Lt. Gen. Walt Piatt, WWP’s chief executive, said in a statement. “These organizations have the infrastructure and expertise to respond immediately to military families in crisis.”

Here’s where the rubber meets the road:

  • Armed Services YMCA will move 187,000 pounds of food to more than 5,300 families across bases in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.

  • Military Family Advisory Network will deliver a week’s worth of groceries and commissary gift cards to 1,250 Guard and Reserve households.

  • Operation Homefront will hand out $500 grocery gift cards to more than 700 post-9/11 veteran and active-duty families.

  • Stronghold Food Pantry will distribute 52,000+ meals to 2,500 families at 40 locations.

  • Hope for the Warriors will support 950 families with case management and direct aid, and help an additional 4,500 military households at food distribution sites nationwide.

  • Elizabeth Dole Foundation will provide emergency financial help and resource support to caregivers of disabled post-9/11 veterans.

This is stop-gap work — the kind of patch job troops are used to doing while the brass and elected grown-ups figure out their next move. But it’s also a reminder of a bitter truth in this country: when things go sideways, veterans and their families are still too often the first to feel the hit and the last to be remembered.

For now, the help is coming from other veterans and the groups that know the terrain.