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Coordinators & Handlers
About PORCH Fearrington
PORCH Fearrington is Fearrington Village’s all-volunteer, grassroots hunger relief organization. We collect food and cash donations through monthly neighborhood food drives and deliver the contributions to the CORA FOOD PANTRY, which provides emergency food to individuals and families in Chatham County, NC.
April 18, 2024 Meeting of Community Coordinators in the PORCH Chatham Communities
On April 18, 2024, Roz and Jon attended a meeting at the CORA Food Pantry for the leaders of all the Chatham PORCH communities. Working with Christine Cotton, Roz Darling founded PORCH Fearrington in 2011 as the first PORCH founded after the original Chapel Hill-Carrboro-Durham original PORCH communities. We were the first in Chatham County, but, as you can see, there are now many of us, including a new one at Chatham Park. Our umbrella organization, PORCH Communities, continues to grow too, with numerous chapters in 12 states.
At the meeting, we learned about all the ways that our food donations are so important to CORA. Because the pantry gets mostly non-name brand food and limited varieties from their food bank sources, our donations add much appreciated quality and choice for the folks who come to CORA. Also, our donations enable the pantry to purchase less food and use their money for more outreach and new programs (they recently partnered with DoorDash, which delivers food directly to children’s homes and eliminates the stigma of receiving backpacks filled with food at school).
Our Impact
Thanks so much for helping with our September 23, 2024 collection.
From 2011 – Present (as of the monthly collection on September 23, 2024). See the Weights & Measures Table at the bottom of this page.
- 334,010 total pounds (167 tons) of food delivered
- $594,538 tax deductible value of food
- $194,504 total cash and checks donated
- 43,426 average bag count based on bag weight
- 400,812 equivalent meals
Thank you for your continued level of extraordinary generosity. As part of this month’s collection (September 2024), neighbors donated 2,036 pounds of food. They contributed $1,531 by cash, checks, and online donations to CORA. See the complete weights and measures tables at the bottom of this page for all the collections between 2011 and this current month of 2024.
We owe a big thank you to our September 23, 2024 collectors and the drivers/loaders who each collected portions of the food contributions to CORA: Jon Darling, Beth & Ray Essington, Anne & Mike Grimmer, Ken Indyk & Bob Krier, and Travus Vera & Reggie Blue on the CORA truck were really terrific.
Participating Fearrington Neighborhoods
The neighborhood coordinators and their contact information are listed on the GET INVOLVED PAGE.
Beechmast Closes | Bradford Place | Burke Place | Bush Creek | East Camden | Phase IV | Countryhouse Closes – East | Countryhouse Closes – West | Henderson Place | Langdon Place | Millcreek Circle | Millcroft Close – Harnett & Sampson | Millcroft Close – Lenoir, Duplin, & Woodleigh | Phases I & II – Creekwood Area | Phase III | Richmond | Rutherford Close | South Camden | South McDowell | The Knolls Close | The Woods – Spindlewood | Weathersfield | West Camden | and Woodbury Close
PORCH Fearrington by the Numbers
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Collection Drivers/Loaders
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CORA’s Transportation Supervisor, Prior West Camden Coordinators, & CORA’s Logistics Specialist (left to right)
1. Food donations to 501(c)3 registered food banks (such as CORA) are tax-deductible; donated food is valued at $1.78 per pound. According to the June 2017 “Feeding America Product Valuation Study, KPMG, Audited,” the average wholesale value of these groceries is $1.78 per pound.
2. The average weight of one bag of donated food in our collections is = 8 pounds, producing an estimated AVERAGE value of $14.25 per bag (8 x $1.78). NOTE that in our community collections, we weigh each bag during the delivery at the CORA Food Bank and we do not count the bags. The bag equivalency value is cited here for the convenience of donors and for comparison with those communities that document their collections by bag count. Our residents pack their own bags, which we then collect; therefore, the weights can range from a few pounds to over 15 pounds, with the documented average being 8 pounds. In larger communities, donated bags of food are taken to a central location, where the content is sorted and re-bagged. The weight of bags in those “processed” collections is higher and can be typically 12 or more pounds per bag.
3. Total weight delivered 8 pounds (the average weight of each bag).
4. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) guidelines define a meal as 1.2 pounds of food. “What We Eat in America (WWEIA)” 2017.
