Shop now if you depend on food stamps or cash assistance from New York.

Neither will work starting early Sunday morning. The system will go down at midnight and isn't expected to come back online until noon Sunday.

It's being shut down so the state can switch to a new company to run the program. It will take at least 12 hours to do the switch. Medicaid benefits are on the same card, but they will not be affected by the change.

Nearly a third of the city's residents rely on food stamps, according to U.S. Census data.

Toni Maxwell, a spokeswoman for Catholic Charities of Onondaga County, said her concern is that the switch won't go smoothly and will end up taking longer than expected.

"We will be prepared for a busy day at our emergency services office on Monday if the conversion process goes longer," Maxwell said.

The Samaritan Center and the Rescue Mission in Syracuse both serve meals on Sunday if people find themselves out of food or money.

Jim Reith, a spokesman for Onondaga County, said the county has been preparing for the switch for some time, but were only notified recently that it would happen this weekend. He said the exact day and time changed at least twice.

The state was forced to make the vendor switch, according to a release, because there were no more extensions on the current contract. This weekend was chosen because the third weekend of the month is usually the lightest in food stamp transactions, said Kristin Proud, commissioner of the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance.

There will be no change to the cards, Proud said. Once the system is back up and running, it should be business as usual.

Contact Marnie Eisenstadt anytime: email | twitter | 315-470-2246.