New PORCH community hub opens in Carrboro

On Nov. 13, Chapel Hill-Carrboro's chapter of PORCH, a grassroots organization dedicated to supporting hunger relief, held a grand opening for its new community hub in Carrboro.

Sofia Edelman, PORCH Chapel Hill-Carrboro’s communications manager and volunteer, said PORCH has been feeding families for the last 14 years, and that the new community hub gives the organization a physical space to welcome them.

Before the hub's opening, she said PORCH was distributing food in a parking lot using a drive-thru model. Staff and volunteers often worked from and stored food in places like the Chapel Hill Public Library and the Carrboro United Methodist Church, which was not feasible, she said. 

PORCH was founded in 2010 by a group of moms who had children in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, Edelman said. She said they noticed during the recession that some kids didn't have lunches, so they started a food drive in their neighborhood. 

“That kind of grew and spread to other neighborhoods and created what we call the 'neighbors helping neighbors' model,” Edelman said.

The new physical space gives participants the dignity of choosing certain foods and the form they want them in, Erin Riney, the executive director of PORCH Chapel Hill-Carrboro, said. Prior to this space, Edelman said families were getting prepacked nonperishables and produce.

“For example, some of our families that are from Central America mentioned [they] don't really use canned foods in [their] cooking, but [they] would love dry beans,” Riney said. “We can easily communicate that to the over 130 neighborhoods that we're tapped into.”

Edelman said moving to the hub has also allowed PORCH to become partners with the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, giving it access to different programs for free food. About a third of the produce, meat and nonperishables in the hub are free for recipients, Edelman said. 

The new hub will not only improve the services that PORCH provides, but will also serve as a place where the community can come together, Edelman said.

“We'll be hosting events here — we'll be way more in contact with participants than we were in the past so we can get real, live feedback from them about things that are working, things that they might want to see improved,” Edelman said. 

Kathy Peillot, co-owner of a nearby wellness center called Restoring Balance, said she is excited to begin volunteering at PORCH with her son using family sign-up slots that the hub will open.

“We’re really grateful to have such wonderful neighbors,” she said.

The hub will have appointments for food shopping, and if a family arrives early, there is a waiting area in the hub with free books and snacks for children, Edelman said. She added that children can take the books home with them.

Riney said PORCH provides snacks to all 21 schools in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools district, working with over 700 families in the district.

“The school social workers use [the snack program] as a way to get to know the families and who has repeated need,” she said.

PORCH also collects donated food for 13 local food pantries through their Food for Pantries program, Riney said.

Shartarka Carmon, a family engagement specialist at Families & Communities Rising, INC. — a nonprofit providing education and support services to families and organizations in the state — attended the grand opening. She said Families & Communities Rising is partnered with Hillsborough's chapter of PORCH, and she is happy that they can continue to serve the surrounding communities.

“We're just really excited — I think that it's going to make a huge difference,” Edelman said. “It's going to make us a lot more sustainable, and we'll be here for a long time to come.”

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