CORA Food Pantry held its grand re-opening Friday July 21st in Pittsboro. They cut a ceremonial red ribbon, ate food, and celebrated with community members, staff, and volunteers. Now after three years of hard work, construction, and planning, the inside pantry is open to the public.
Staff, volunteers, and community members gathered to watch the ceremonial red ribbon be cut to signify the opening of the new Chatham Outreach Alliance Food Pantry or better known as CORA. Afterward, the building was open to tour and a buffet was available in the back room. Cindie Bert, president of the board and a volunteer, has been with CORA for around six years.
Bert said, “It’s just been enriching. I’ve said that I feel like many people here are my family. So it’s a wonderful feeling to be able to come here and volunteer.”
For the last three years, CORA members have been providing an outdoor, drive-thru style pantry. Community members would be given certain foods by staff and volunteers instead of choosing it themselves. The new building is designed like a grocery store so community members in need can look through fresh produce, baked goods, frozen foods, and other items you may see in a market. Rebecca Hankins, the Development and Communications Director, said being able to choose your own food is important.
“I think by having a choice shopping experience that gives people dignity, gives them power over their lives and the food that they’re feeding their families is extremely important,” said Hankins. “And I just think having this space, this community space where people can come together and get help is really important.”
While giving a tour of the pantry while Suzen Bria, volunteer and vice president of the board, explained the set up.
“This is sort of a warehouse area and this is a combination of food that we’ve purchased and food that’s been donated. It all kind of gets stored back here. We also get a lot of donations from grocery stores in the form of retail recovery. And that’s usually things like produce and bakery items,” said Bria.
A new addition to the food storage room is two walk-in refrigerators, one behind the building and another in the pantry. Bria said this allows meat to be stored and other items that previously could not be bought in bulk.
Bria explained, “You can see that there’s a good selection of, you know, there’s some canned things. There’s some things that kids are probably gonna like but a lot of fresh produce staples like pastas and rice, sauces, breads. It’s a good selection of foods.”
Food pantry where community members can walk through and pick out the food they need.
To put this all together for the public has taken a lot of work. Right now, CORA has nine staff and 280 volunteers who have been working towards making this food pantry a reality. Another volunteer and board member, Bobbi Morel, said she loves working for the pantry and plans to continue for a long time.
“One of the most impressive things for me has been caring for the community,” Morel said. “Not making people feel like we are doing you a favor, but we want to care for you. And so it’s never good enough where we are, it’s always important, how can we serve the community better? And Cora does that over and over and over.”
For Morel, having access to food and nutrition is of the utmost importance to the community.
“Everyone deserves to have healthy nutrition. It’s a basic human right, and Cora sees that need and that, right? And not only do they try to provide that opportunity, but they try to do that the best that they can, improving on that every day,” Morel said.
The pantry is open Monday through Thursday from 10 am to 2 pm and Fridays are open 12 pm to 2 pm for drive through pick-up.
Bert explained, “We’re looking into hopefully opening maybe one evening a week and one weekend day, probably a Saturday. So that’s part of our ongoing plan as far as what we’re gonna do.”
Photo via CORA Food Pantry Reopening
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
Comments on Chapelboro are moderated according to our Community Guidelines