Hometown Heroes: Lynne Privette and Tiz Giordano

This week’s Hometown Heroes, presented by Hendrick Southpoint, are Lynne Privette and Tiz Giordano.

They’re members of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Mother’s Club on Facebook. Earlier this year, the club turned its attention to finding ways to help UNC students who were having to stay in town after campus go shut down due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

“Part of what we wanted to do was just make sure that students who didn’t have local family or were marginalized were able to find some support,” said Privette.

That initiative got a big response in the spring. Then when the same thing happened again in the fall, Privette and another mother stepped up to organize delivery of care packages to students who were having to stay in town again.

“I, in earnest, put out the sign up on a Saturday morning on labor day weekend and said, ‘Oh, it’s Labor Day,'” said Privette. “And it was just about fully funded by Monday night. And it’s just through the generosity of the community.”

Volunteers have put together dozens of care packages for local students containing everything from school supplies to toiletries, to snacks, even to stuffed animals, plus handmade notes for each student.

Additionally, Privette and others are now organizing a new initiative to buy gift cards to local restaurants and delivered those to students too, to support both the students and local businesses.

“The goal is to pick maybe four or five restaurants and see if we can raise two 50 to 300 for each restaurant and then, if the community can support that, can we do it again?”

If you want to help the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Mother’s Club in its mission to support students, contact Lynne Privette at lkprivette@gmail.com.

Listen to this week’s Hometown Heroes segment:

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