This week’s Hometown Hero, presented by Hendrick Southpoint, is Liz Cartano from Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools.

Cartano is the director of child nutrition for CHCCS and helped spearhead a program called “Food for Students,” which delivers hundreds of thousands of meals to students in the local community who are going without school lunches during the coronavirus pandemic.

“She just picked up and started going to make sure our kids not only had lunch, but snacks and breakfast and enrichment pieces,” said Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger. “When there’s a missing volunteer or a teacher who can’t show up, Liz is there with her team.”

So far, Cartano and her team have distributed over 350,000 meals to the local community.

“It’s just an amazing effort, but you have to have somebody who truly cares and goes the extra mile, is passionate about children in general,” said Hemminger. “We’re just so fortunate to get someone like her.”

In addition to her work with CHCCS, Cartano is helping to advise other school districts — like Durham and Orange — on how to make this work.

“It’s been such a pleasure to work with her. Like I said, you truly look for someone like this to lead your programs, events, especially when you’re dealing with our children, our community who deserve to have healthy food. She takes that to heart.”

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Listen to this week’s Hometown Hero segment: