Chapel Hill Hunger Relief Organization Porch Reaches Donations Landmark

Chapel Hill-based volunteer hunger relief organization Porch celebrated reaching $2 million in donations since its formation in 2010.

Porch founder Susan Romaine says that the success of Porch, which started with delivering cans of tuna with fellow founders Debbie Horwitz and Christine Cotton in Lake Hogan Farms, is due in part to the Chapel Hill/Carrboro community.

“I think it’s fair to say that we never would have expected this in our wildest dreams,” said Romaine, “but at the same time I think that we appreciate more than ever that we are just an ideal community for an organization like Porch. We have thousands of people in this community that are very caring and generous, and we also have thousands of people that are really struggling to make ends meet.”

Romaine says that through Porch’s monthly food drives, these two worlds have been bridged.

“And that bridge has proven to be very reliable, and the bridge is very, very simple,” said Romaine, “as simple as leaving a can of soup or a box of cereal out on a porch once a month for pickup by a volunteer neighborhood coordinator.”

Porch now consists of three programs: Food for Pantries, which stocks food pantries with non-perishable foods, Food for Families, which provides fresh foods to low-income families, and Food for Schools, which delivers healthy snacks to Chapel Hill/Carrboro schools and after-school programs.

“As we have grown over the years, we have certainly taken on more programs. And in the process of taking on these programs, we’re trying to fill in as many of these holes in the safety net as we possibly can, whether it be delivering food directly into the hands of families, getting food into the schools or getting food into some of the local pantries that we serve,” said Romaine.

For more information or to get involved with Porch, visit the organization’s website.

Photo via Porch