Published On: November 1st, 2025Categories: Policy

Humanity in a Middle School Parking Lot

By Susan Romaine  |  November 1, 2025

cars lined up to get emergency food assistance

At daybreak on an unseasonably warm Saturday in early November, PORCH Chapel Hill-Carrboro, in partnership with Orange County, began setting up for its first emergency food distribution in the wake of the SNAP crisis. A week of intense planning was now being put to the test. In the McDougle Middle School parking lot teams of PORCH volunteers unloaded four trucks (one donated by Rolling Refrigeration) filled to the brim with hearty nonperishables, seasonal fruits and vegetables, milk, eggs, diapers, and feminine products.  

At 7:45 am, the first car was in line for the food distribution. By mid-morning, the line of cars snaked around the school parking lot. By the noon-time distribution, it spilled over into long lines on Old Fayetteville Road, where three Town of Carrboro police officers directed traffic.

For every newish-looking car in the emergency food line, there were a dozen cars with a loud muffler, a hanging bumper, a dented door, or a cracked windshield. A piece of furniture was strapped across the roof of one car. Scattered in some of the back seats were cleaning or gardening supplies, perhaps used for a job that was simply not paying enough to adequately feed a family.

Patiently passing the time inside the long line of cars were passengers of all ages, races, ethnicities, political affiliations, and physical abilities. Trump and Harris bumper stickers alike were spotted on cars, mini-vans and pick-up trucks. An unusual number of vehicles had a license plate with a symbol of a wheelchair, reflecting the many people who are disabled receiving SNAP benefits.

Most striking, though, were the hundreds of young children sitting in the long line of parked cars as their parents desperately tried to fill at least a part of the SNAP groceries they once counted on. On this glorious fall day, just right for shooting hoops in a driveway or visiting the playground at the park, these kids were cooped up in cars, unknowingly and shamefully being used as “pawns” during political negotiations over the government shut-down.

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I had a ground-level view of all of this. I had happily volunteered to slip on a brightly colored vest and direct traffic in the crowded school parking lot. The combination of the long lines and the rolled-down car windows created a captive audience for conversation, which I took full advantage of. Among those with whom I talked were:

  • A foster mom for seven children, whom I first met many years ago while dropping off a fresh turkey at her home over the Thanksgiving holiday. “Some of my kids are now on their own,” she shared with pride. “But some have had a harder time leaving the nest.” She expressed gratitude for emergency food that would “help stretch my very tight budget.”
  • An older gentleman, who arrived at McDougle at daybreak to scope out the parking lot. He then drove to nearby Hank Anderson Park “to walk for 45 minutes and try to relax.” Since his SNAP benefits had stopped, the daily exercise was helping him keep his sanity, he said.
  • A mother with two young kids in the back seat of her car, who quickly dismissed my apologies for her family’s long wait in the line. “It’s okay,” she reassured me with a big grin, as a video played in the background. “We’re learning all about World War II.”  In other cars, kids passed the time reading books, playing games on an iPad, or listening to music. One adorable girl blew kisses to each passerby.
  • penny with a cross cut out of the center of it.An older woman, with a heavy eastern European accent, who thanked me repeatedly for serving as a traffic cop. As the line started to move, she dug around in her purse and pulled out a penny with a cross that had been chiseled out from the middle. She opened my hand and placed the coin inside, while offering a blessing. I’m not exactly sure what she said, but I know the penny is a priceless gift that I will cherish forever.
  • A mother driving a car packed full of young kids, who asked about the nearest bathroom. I pointed to an open door at the McDougle gymnasium and offered to keep watch over her kids while she beelined to the school. “No, thank you,” she said. “I don’t want anyone to think that I am cutting in line. I’ll wait.” An hour or so later, when her car finally turned the bend for the home stretch, I saw this woman jump out of her car to use the porta potty sitting just a few feet from the parking lot. No one behind her honked a horn. No one cut in front of her. They all understood.

grocery bags of food donations with volunteers standing over them All told, 633 families received nearly $45,000 in groceries that day thanks to the helping hands of 250 volunteers, emergency funding from Orange County, and the generosity of dozens of community partners like the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina and the Diaper Bank of North Carolina. But the numbers don’t tell the full story. This Thanksgiving season, I am deeply grateful to have been a witness to the gathering of humanity in the McDougle Middle School parking lot. At a time when our political rhetoric can feel so cruel, I was awash in expressions of gratitude and shouts of “Happy Thanksgiving.” At a time when we too often feel pitted against each other, looking for unfair advantage, I observed drivers patiently sitting in line, politely waiting their turn. At a time when we can be quick to exclude and deport, I saw the painstaking care given to community members who arrived at the food distribution on foot – with heavy bags to then carry to a transit stop or all the way home.

While thankfully the government shut-down is ending, sadly the SNAP crisis will persist. As more costs for the program shift from the federal government to states, as many as 1.4 million North Carolinians may receive smaller benefits and, in some cases, no benefits at all.

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