Blog
January 2022: The Latest from PORCH
- One of our program participants, Patricia, brought homemade tamales for all of our distribution volunteers last month. What a thoughtful and delicious holiday treat!
- We wanted to share this thoughtful note we recently received. Thank you, Rachel, for joining us in working toward alleviating hunger and promoting better nutrition in our community!
- This fall, Weaver Street Market’s Round Up! fundraising campaign for PORCH Chapel Hill-Carrboro raised $32,883. These proceeds will allow us to purchase fresh produce for our Food for Families program. Weaver Street Market has provided $348,000 for PORCH over the past seven years thanks to the success of Round Up! This will help provide significant hunger relief in our communities throughout the year. Thank you, shoppers, for rounding up, and thank you to Weaver Street for their incredible partnership!
- We want to recognize our partners at Two Men and a Truck. They transport our boxes each month from Hillsborough to our distribution site in Chapel Hill. We appreciate their excellent service. The loading teams arrive promptly to our loading site and then to our distribution site, handling the boxes carefully and cheerfully – rain or shine, heat or cold. We are lucky to have reliable collaborators like Two Men and a Truck! The value of this service helps us provide even more fresh food to the families we serve.
- Jasmine Oglesby from Terra Dotta dropped off the non-perishable food they collected in their Chapel Hill office. In addition, their colleagues – who work remotely in towns near and far – also made online monetary donations. Thank you, team, for supporting PORCH!
- You’re never too young to make a difference! Above is a picture of our newest (and some of our youngest) Neighborhood Coordinators. This was their first neighborhood collection for PORCH, and they did a fabulous job, collecting more than 20 bags full of healthy food for our neighbors in need!
- A big thank you to Sweat Lab Studios for running another successful food drive for PORCH. We appreciate you!
- Maggie Gradison, a longtime PORCH supporter, donated 35 colorful and soft handmade hats to PORCH, and we distributed them last month. They made the day! Thank you for lending your time and talents to PORCH, Maggie!
- We recently received this card in the mail from Carolina Cupboard, one of the 12 pantries we serve in our Food for Pantries program every month. This pantry assists UNC students. We are proud to partner with all of the pantries that connect PORCH donations to those who need food in our community. Many people don’t realize that food insecurity is a substantial issue on college campuses, but it is!
- Our friends at Carol Woods had a fantastic collection last month. Pictured above is Curtis McLaughlin and one of the two carts full of food he delivered!
- On the move! Shauna and Tim Farmer are Neighborhood Coordinators for Coker Hills. Our co-founder Christine Cotton was driving home from the grocery store and happened to see Shauna out collecting her PORCH donations, so Christine stopped and snapped this photo of an excellent volunteer in action.
- Check this out! PORCH volunteers packed 33 bags full of nonperishable items for Compass Center clients who attended a recent workshop.
- Meet Neighborhood Coordinator Mary Wall Garren. In the past, Mary received a holiday food gift basket from her financial planner, Mike Ashworth, to thank her for her business. In recent years, Mary has requested that, in lieu of the year-end gift basket, Mike make a donation to PORCH. What a great idea! Thank you, Mary and Mike!
- The Chapel Hill High PORCH Club will hold a PORCH benefit with Brandwein’s Bagels on Friday, January 14. Eat at Brandwein’s that day, and 15 percent goes to PORCH!
- Recently, a group of high school students from Alliance of Youth Leaders in the U.S. (AYLUS) helped to sort and pack our non-perishables. We appreciate their hard work!
- Kate Ross and Carol Lucas orchestrate the sorting, packing, and distribution of our non-perishable food and coordinate with the many volunteers who help with the heavy lifting. This month, we packed up 340 bags of non-perishable food for our Food For Families participants and distributed about 221 bags of food to the pantries that we help stock. Great work!
- Meet our newest Neighborhood Coordinators, Bannie Pan and Kate Chou. We are happy to have them on board! Neighborhood Coordinators are responsible for spreading the word about the designated day for the monthly food drives, picking up donations from neighborhood porches, and getting the nonperishable bags of food to a central location. Unsure of whether or not your neighborhood has a Neighborhood Coordinator? Check out our updated list!
- Mitch Horwitz and his colleagues at Duke’s Department of Hematologic Malignancies and Cellular Therapy collected food for PORCH this month. We are grateful for their generosity and for the excellent care they give their patients!
- We love this selfie from Kaitlyn Boeckel, president of the Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity at UNC, taken as she dropped off the food they collected during their food drive. Well done, Alpha Phi Omega!
- This month, during our food distribution, we handed out Kidzu Children’s Museum MindSnack flyers, filled with fun activities for kids. This edition was all about homemade crayons and colorful chameleons! You can find electronic versions of all of Kidzu’s MindSnacks here. We are proud to partner with this wonderful children’s museum throughout the year!