A local nonprofit organization has partnered with 19 schools and one preschool to provide children with healthy snacks.
PORCH, a hunger relief organization in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area, offers food such as fresh produce and dry goods to families in need once a month. Despite this effort, some students were still coming to school with no snacks.
To address this issue, PORCH recently began a program called Food for Schools. The program gives schools in Chapel Hill and Carrboro $250 worth of food twice a year — once at the beginning of the school year and once in early January.
“We could see the need,” said Becky Hebert, the Food for Schools coordinator, about the program. “Teachers and social workers were spending about $25 a month out of their own pockets. A supplemental food need was there.”
The snack food that PORCH provides gives students access to food even if they’re not enrolled in the free and reduced lunch program.
Food for Schools is funded by local businesses and organizations. The Chapel of the Cross, a church in the area, supports the program as one of their Parish Supported ministries.
“We decided to help support PORCH because we had a number of parishioners already involved in food donation drives for PORCH, and we also felt it was important to help food-insecure schoolchildren in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools in this very important way,” said Perri Kersh, chairperson of the Outreach Ministry Committee, in an email.
Betsy Booth, a social worker at Estes Hill Elementary School, said the program has had a positive impact on the school.
“They give us a large amount of snack food," Booth said. "I survey my teachers as to what snacks they would like. There are always students who need food. I distribute it to the teachers."
