Focus Area: Basic Needs (financial stability)
Name of United Way Supported Program: Cora Food Pantry and SNACK!
How will CORA use United Way donor dollars?
CORA utilizes donations from the United Way to purchase food for both the Pantry and SNACK! Program. Through the Pantry, CORA served 10,660 individuals more than 1 million nutritious meals last year. This is a 17 percent increase over the prior year. This summer, we served 218,143 meals to 1,500 children over the summer. This is more than a 50 percent increase in meal distribution over the prior year. With the donations we receive, we are able to meet the increasing need in Chatham County and make sure food insecure families have the nutritious food they desperately need.
Why is this program essential to Chatham County?
Approximately 14 percent of the population in Chatham County live at or below the poverty level ($24,600/year for a family of four). However, CORA is meeting food insecurity needs for families making $49,200/year for a family of four. These guidelines allow us to serve more people and better meet our mission. While we served nearly 11,000 individuals last year, we estimate there are over 8,500 additional neighbors in need who could use the services of the Pantry. In order to meet this gap in services and demand, we need to continue to build support in our community to ensure that CORA has the resources to guarantee that families don’t go hungry.
In addition, 50 percent of public school children in Chatham County receive free or low-cost meals through the federal school lunch program because their family income is at or near the poverty level. More than 4,300 school children in Chatham County will likely not have adequate replacements for these meals during the summer. Through SNACK!, 10 weeks of nutritious meals are provided to kids who would have no way of receiving these meals during the months school is not in session. Every two weeks, food for every breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks are distributed to families in need.
CORA is determined to make sure we are moving the needle towards a community without hunger. It’s critical that we work together to achieve this and take care of the most vulnerable in our community. Nearly 50 percent of those served by CORA are under 17 or over 65 years of age.
How does the program make a difference in the community?
CORA is a place of hope and comfort for many in our community, where there is always an empathetic ear, supportive smile, and shelves of food to help meet their needs. CORA envisions a community without hunger where nobody goes to bed hungry. We are open five days a week, Monday – Friday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Families receive a week’s worth of groceries at each visit, up to six times in a 12-month period. These weekly food allotments are selected to provide 21 nutritious meals for each family member. However, when additional assistance is needed beyond six visits, CORA makes sure each family gets the help they need.
SNACK! helps our most vulnerable, children, in Chatham County who face food insecurity. Studies show that children who participate in programs like SNACK! receive the nutrition they need and experience many benefits. In the short-term, the programs can help mitigate summer weight gain, cognitive decline, and summer learning loss for children from low-income families. In the longer-term, the lasting effects may help increase high school graduation rates and reduce susceptibility to chronic diseases, which are otherwise each accompanied by large potential costs to the children and their communities.
Please share a story about a Chatham resident this program helped and the impact it made...
Every day CORA affects the lives of Chatham County residents who are facing hunger. From the elderly couple who had to choose between medication or food that left the Pantry with a full grocery cart, or the single mother who needed to use her grocery money to pay the electric bill and was able to feed her two children in January, to the teacher who just needed a few things to get through the month before school started... However, the biggest success we see is when a family that has needed our services comes back to CORA to give back. Whether through volunteering, donating food, or money, they recognize the impact CORA had on their lives and want to pay it forward to their neighbors in need. Recently, a former client humbly walked into CORA and handed over $1,000 to Melissa Driver Beard, CORA’s Executive Director. She simply stated that we helped her in a time of crisis and wanted to give back and help others.