Food for the Summer Bringing Food, Fun to Chapel Hill – Carrboro

Summer vacation can be a difficult time for some kids, especially the nearly 27 percent of Chapel Hill – Carrboro City School students who qualify as food insecure.

As Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger points out, many of these children rely on free-or-reduced price school lunches to eat during the school year, and those lunches stop during the summer.

“We have a very long summer this year, about 11 weeks again,” says Hemminger. “The kids that are on free-and-reduced lunch, of which we had over 3,000 kids, don’t have access to those meals during the summer.”

That’s where Food for the Summer comes in, an organization that Hemminger helped to start which is entering it’s fourth summer of providing lunches to children that may not be able to afford them.

“Food for the Summer works with the school system’s nutrition program, and we help deliver the meals to the kids,” says Hemminger. “Whether at camp, or we call them ‘feeding sites’, open sites, closed sites, and we ask for volunteers to help pick up the meals and take them to the kids.”

Food for the Summer relies on volunteers, and according to Hemminger they had nearly 600 last year.

“It’s about an hour-and-a-half, two-hour window of time to volunteer,” says Hemminger. “You can sign up once or multiple times.”

Food for the Summer provided over 42,000 meals to kids last summer, and hopes for even more this year. Food for the Summer will serve meals and hold other activities Monday through Friday from June 17 through August 16.

For more information, visit foodforthesummer.org.

‹

CHCCS Summer Food Program Shares Locations, Start Times

Since being founded in 2015, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and Town of Chapel Hill summer food program has served hundreds of thousands of meals during the gap between academic years. Starting next week, the program will be back and feeding even more local students. The CHCCS district announced its Food for Students program will […]

CHCCS' Food For Students Prepares to Alter Distribution After Serving 1.3 Million Meals

While the food assistance program is set to change its distribution model ahead of the fall semester and in-person instruction, operations are still in full swing.

CHCCS' Food For Students Dishes Out 1 Million Meals During Pandemic

Chapel Hill-Carrboro's Food For Students program has served more than one million meals to children in the community since the pandemic began. 

CHCCS' Food For Students Distributes More Than 900,000 Meals

In wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the local Food For The Summer program has stepped up to feed students year-round after school closures on March 13.

CHCCS Asking for Volunteers, Donations to Feed Students and Families

In the 2018 to 2019 school year, almost 27 percent of children in the Chapel Hill/Carrboro City School District were reported as food insecure. That’s over 3,000 students. As COVID-19 keeps schools closed and many parents from work, local nonprofits are seeing a bigger need than ever and need your help to serve the community […]

Food for the Summer Sees Growth in 2018

Food for the Summer recently wrapped up its third summer after serving over 50,000 meals this year. Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger, who was a driving force in the program’s origination, said the town is working to find ways for the program to serve even more children next summer. “Lots of enrichment programs, lots of […]

Summer Meal Program Feeds K-12 Students in Chapel Hill and Carrboro

School is nearly out for the summer in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, but cafeteria workers are ready to remain in service for students of the local district that rely on federal lunches. That service is part of a program called Food for the Summer, which was coordinated by Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger to keep […]

McDougle Middle's Jessie Grinnell Named CHCCS' 2025 Teacher of The Year

Jessie Grinnell, an English Language Arts teacher at C & L McDougle Middle School, is the first two-time winner Teacher of the Year at CHCCS.

Orange County Commissioners Consider School Budget Requests Alongside Potential Federal Funding Cuts, Tax Increases

The Orange County Commissioners recently met with the CHCCS and OCS boards to review proposed budgets for the upcoming school year.

CHCCS Reviewing Applications, Community Survey Responses for Next Superintendent

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education is entering the next phase of its search for a new superintendent to succeed Nyah Hamlett, who will be leaving at the end of this academic year in June. During the application window, CHCCS received 37 applications coming from 14 different states for the superintendent position.  […]

›