I was talking with one of our neighbors last week, a woman who has been coming to CORA for years. She has volunteered here herself, given her time to help others find what they needed. Last week, she told me she has never been more worried in her life about making ends meet.
I have been thinking about her ever since.
She is not alone. Not by a long shot.
Across Chatham County, families who were already stretching every dollar are now stretching further. The cost of groceries, utilities, and housing has not let up. And quietly, without much fanfare, one of the federal programs that helped us meet that need has been cut dramatically.
TEFAP, the Emergency Food Assistance Program, is a federal program that sends food directly to pantries like ours. Not long ago, a single month’s TEFAP delivery might bring 44 different items and nearly 18,000 pounds of food, much of it fresh produce, proteins, and healthy staples that families counted on. This month, we received five items totaling around 5,000 pounds.
That is not a rounding error. That is a gap that our neighbors feel.
We are doing what we have always done when circumstances shift: adapting. We are leaning harder on community donations, rethinking what we purchase and how, and working to make sure that what lands on our shelves still reflects the dignity every neighbor deserves. Our team has not wavered. Neither has our commitment.
But we need your help to keep that promise.
When you donate to CORA right now, you are directly filling the space that federal funding has left behind. You are the reason a family leaves our pantry with a full cart instead of a partial one. You are the reason we can say yes to every neighbor who walks through our doors, including the woman I spoke with last week, who has given so much to this community and now needs it to show up for her.
If you are able to make a gift today, please do. And if you can share this with someone who cares about Chatham County, please do that too.
Our shelves reflect what our community believes. Right now, we need that belief to be loud.
