Fighting Hunger Quietly in Chatham County

Like many mothers facing financial restraints, Mariana* remains poised and happy around her children. Her six-year-old daughter, Daisy, doesn’t realize that her school lunch comes at no cost to her parents, or that they struggle to put a fresh meal on the table every night. What she does know is that when she trots off the school bus at 3 p.m., there is a warm after-school snack ready when she walks in the door.

In addition to those forays, Mariana relies on the food she gets from El Vínculo Hispano (the Hispanic Liaison of Chatham County), which runs a food pantry every first, third and fifth Monday of the month.

“When it’s time for El Vínculo Hispano to give away food, I don’t have to buy as many vegetables at the store because I know I can get fresh food there.”

The pantry’s fresh food offering is due in large part to a partnership with Farmer Foodshare.

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Hard Choices & Creative Solutions to Food Insecurity in Carrboro, North Carolina

“When I couldn’t serve food, I felt like one of the worst mothers in the whole entire world,” Belinda* says. “It was like, what kind of a mother am I that I cannot provide for a child. I remember thinking that.”

Making matters more difficult—neither Belinda nor her kids are satisfied with cheaper, unhealthier food. Ari considers watermelon and blueberries as his favorite foods and Luna has a fondness for strawberries. Ari often makes weekend breakfast, and considers churros, sorbet and rainbow chard in his repertoire. Although, to be fair, both kids also admitted to enjoying fast food.

Finding enough money to get these foods still isn’t easy. But Belinda never considered making compromises on the kind and quality of foods that her kids eat.

That’s where TABLE came in. The Carrboro hunger relief agency was able to help her extend the buying power of her SNAP benefits (used via an EBT card), with none of the drawbacks. “I did feel like at first, people were looking down on me. When I’d pull out the EBT card I would just feel so much shame at first,” Belinda says. “When I finally found TABLE… they are just so loving and they treated me with such high esteem.”

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