Living, Fearrington News
Woodham Collects over 13,000 Pounds of Food Donations
We are thrilled to share this letter from Bill Wilson, a Fearrington Resident and volunteer for CORA food pantry here in Chatham County. Bill heads up the monthly food drives in the Woodham neighborhood here in Fearrington. We are so proud of our residents and all the good works they do for our greater community. Thank you Bill for sharing!
Hi neighbors,
I’ll bet that most of you will be surprised to learn that this month marks our 6th anniversary of participating in the food pantry program! Way back in June 2013, Doug Rhodes commented on a small blurb in the FHA newsletter about a program in Fearrington called PORCH, which collects food donations in the village to bring to CORA, a Chatham County food pantry. He thought it might be a worthy activity for our block. I did too. The Woodham alliance was born. Each month I send you an email asking for donations, and each month you graciously and enthusiastically respond. I’ll get to our totals in a moment, but first here’s a bit of CORA history.
CORA Food Pantry was founded in 1989 as the Chatham OutReach Alliance, Inc. (CORA) with the sole mission of providing emergency food to those in need throughout Chatham County. We remain exclusively focused on that founding mission. We are a 501(c)(3) designated organization. Our long-standing approach is to provide emergency food to individuals and families who are thrust into a crisis because of job loss, illness, loss of domicile, loss of breadwinner or other hardship.
CORA serves any Chatham County resident who needs emergency food. We are open five days a week , Monday – Friday, 10 am to 2 pm (excluding state holidays). Clients can receive a week’s worth of groceries up to six times in a 12-month period. These weekly food allotments are selected to provide 21 nutritious meals for each family member.
CORA also has two nutrition programs for children: a summer food program called SNACK! (Summer Nutritional Assistance for Chatham Kids) and the Backpack Support Program that helps independent Backpack programs provide food to disadvantaged school children for weekends and holidays.
CORA now serves an average of 500 families per month. To meet this demand, the Executive Director, Operations Manager, and Volunteer Coordinator are now full-time employees. A donor relations/data assistant and a SNACK program project coordinator have also been added part-time. Volunteers fill all other functions at the pantry, including board members. CORA expects to distribute over 500,000 individual meals this fiscal year.
Now for the good part. In our six years of participation, we’ve contributed 13122 pounds of food and $10,690. That’s not the Fearrington total, that’s the WOODHAM total! That is one heck of number! Based on CORA’s estimate that it takes 70 pounds of food to feed a family of four for a week, our little street provided 340 weeks of food to that family. Lots of different ways to apply the totals, but here’s the easiest. We’re closing in on 12 tons of donations. Well done, Woodham. You are a blessing.
Thanks, friends.
Bill Wilson
*For more information about CORA, their PORCH program, and how you can participate or make a donation, visit CORA’s website.