It doesn't appear President Trump and congressional democrats got any closer Wednesday to funding the government and ending what is now a 26 day partial government shutdown.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has refused to put any money to build a wall along the southern border and she's asking Trump to delay his January 29th State of the Union speech.

"Build a wall, don't build a wall," the long time wife of a Coast Guard member, Kelly Metcalf, told NY1, "Just don't hold our paychecks hostage because of your disagreements."

Metcalf's husband James is a Coast Guardsman assigned to inspect ships, but like the rest of this military branch, he is working during the partial government shutdown without pay.

Kelly said, "We live paycheck to paycheck like a lot of other military families...we deferred our car payments this month, [so] we were able to pay other bills.” She says she's just focused on necessities, but not just her own.

Kelly helped to organize a makeshift food pantry on Fort Wadsworth. Staten Islanders have been dropping off donations inside the Father Capodanno Memorial Chapel.

Ed Urrutia from Bay Terrace brought canned goods, coffee, pasta and cereal, "People are hurting," he explains, "so if you have the ability to help out in any way, you should do it. Just by giving a little bit, if this helps a family put dinner on the table tonight then that's a good thing."

Tracy Schulman of New Dorp Beach explained her motivation to help, "Our Coast Guard men and women were here for us after Superstorm Sandy. We're all one family here. So it was important that just as they helped their neighbors in their time of need that we help them in their time of need."

The 42,000 active Coast Guard members nationwide are the only active duty branch of the armed forces not getting paid because their budget falls under the Department of Homeland Security, not the Department of Defense, which has been funded for fiscal year 2019. Homeland Security's fiscal year 2019 budget is tied up in the current budget impasse.

That leaves Kelly, a mother of two and wife of a military man for 16 years, with little patience.