With schools closed, cafeterias closed. Here’s how Durham students got fed on Wednesday

With a dozen Durham schools closed Wednesday due to protest, thousands of students needed to make alternative plans for lunches.

Many food insecure students rely on school cafeterias offering breakfast and lunch. Because of the school closings, those cafeterias were not able to prepare and serve meals to students.

The Durham Association of Educators, the group organizing Wednesday’s protest, directed parents and students to local food banks and meal sites. Some food banks offered meals as part of their regular operations, while some set because of Wednesday’s school closings.

Sandwiches were handed out at the Staff Development Center at 10 a.m., the site of two planned protests Wednesday.

The recommended meal sites are:

• DPS Staff Development Center: 2107 Hillandale Road (10 a.m. to 2 p.m.)

• Iglesia Emanuel: 2504 N. Roxboro St. (2 to 4 p.m.)

• Believers United for Progress: 1306 Fayetteville St. (3 to 6 p.m.)

• Jubilee Baptist: 2025 Ephesus Church Road in Chapel Hill (10:30 a.m.)

• Bell Yeager Free Will Baptist: 128 E. Cornwallis Road (10 a.m. to 12 p.m.)

• Russell Memorial CME: 703 S. Alston Ave. (9 a.m. to 12 p.m.)

• Durham Community Food Pantry: 2020 Chapel Hill Road (10 a.m. to 1 p.m.) (5 to 7 p.m.)

The Durham Association of Educators put out a call Tuesdays asking for sandwich prep and meal donations.

“This will help feed DPS students and families affected by staffing shortages,” the group said in a Facebook post. “We will be offering pick up of groceries and lunches to fill as many of the gaps as possible.”

Volunteers gather to make lunches

Volunteers at Jubilee Baptist Church in Chapel Hill got word of the planned sick-out Tuesday from a church member who teaches in the Durham schools.

The tiny congregation immediately organized to make bagged lunches for families in need: peanut butter sandwiches, bananas, chips and cookies, with a few non-allergenic options.

Caitlin Georgas, whose husband is a co-pastor at the church, manned the boxes of 50 brown paper sacks Wednesday morning just inside the door next to the sanctuary, ready to hand them out to anyone in need.

”Teachers wanted to make sure the kids are taken care of as much as possible,” Georgas said.

Georgas had been at the church since 10 a.m. but just before noon, didn’t have any takers on the bag lunches.

Jubillee Baptist, with only about 40 members, reorganized in 2019 around the mission of helping people in the South Durham community get out from under debt that affects their quality of life. The church has made grants to help pay medical debt and back rent, using funds raised years ago for a new sanctuary the church decided not to build.

The church, which started as Ephesus Baptist, changed its name to Jubilee to note its alignment with the Bible verse in Leviticus 25 about the need to regularly forgive debt and repatriate property since all things fundamentally belong to God.

The church is within five miles of two of Wednesday’s closed schools, Githens Middle and Jordan High.

Supporting underpaid teachers and school aides and staff is in line with the church’s emphasis on social equity and fairness, Georgas said, and raising pay would help make the schools safer and better.

Georgas has two children of her own in Durham schools, she said.

As a church, she said, “We are willing to make lunches, go to protests, sign petitions, whatever,” she said. “We’re on board.”

‘We’re behind them’

When Jordan High School closed for the day, sophomore classmates Harris Magnum, Heath Tuttle and Carter Johnson decided to spend part of their afternoon volunteering at a weekly food giveaway at Iglesia Emanuel on Roxboro Street. They helped load food into the trunks of the long line of cars that rolled through the church parking lot.

Pantry workers packed extra boxes when they learned Wednesday morning that organizers of the school “sick out” had listed the giveaway as a resource for people who needed food to make up for their children not getting school meals.

The young men said the school closure was an inconvenience for families and a disruption for students, but they understood teachers and other workers taking action.

”Teachers work hard and they deserve to get paid,” Johnson said. ”I think if the teachers think it’s a good idea, we’re behind them,” Mangum said.

‘If we had known’

By 4 p.m. Wednesday, the food pantry at Iglesia Emanuel Church on Roxboro Road had handed out 590 boxes of food. Cars pulled into two lanes and took a number while one of 90 volunteers loaded a box of items like rice and pasta and canned goods into the car.

Iglesia Emanuel is particularly sought out because of its variety of fresh produce, which on Wednesday included winter vegetables like broccoli, carrots, collards, beets, sweet potatoes and apples, plus some bananas.

The 590 boxes nearly match the total the church hands out every Wednesday, organizers Margaret and Miguel Rubiera said, but that Wednesday, they estimated nearly 100 of those boxes went to families impacted by the school closures.

Though the church was listed as a place for families to find meals on Wednesday, Margaret Rubiera said she wasn’t notified. She wished she had been.

“I wish we had known; we could have bought more food and packed more boxes,” Rubiera said. “If we had found out yesterday we could have done more.”

Rubiera said the food bank has a steady stream of regulars she sees every week, mostly working poor families and older residents on social security. But she saw a higher number of people walk-up or take the bus on Wednesday, people that don’t always come to the food pantry.

“It just makes me way to cry, if you want to know the truth,” Rubiera said. “There are going to be people we have to turn away. You hate to have to turn people away, I wish we had forewarning. We’ll be prepared for more people next week. I don’t want to get caught short again.”

At 4:09, Iglesia Emanuel handed out its last box of food for the day.

Putting those school meals on wheels

When no parents had come to the church after two and a half hours, Georgas packed the meals, water bottles and Gatorade into her little red hatchback and drove to an apartment complex on Garrett Road off 15-501. The church member who’s in the teachers’ union used her network to notify parents they could meet Georgas at her car and get food.

Heather Folliard, a co-pastor at Jubilee Baptist, met Georgas to help.

”People blame teachers and others who are going on strike for children going hungry,” Folliard said. “We need to place that blame where it belongs: on the superintendent and others in that office who are getting paid. A lot of the people who say they are acting in the best interest of the students really are concerned about the budget and about re-election.”

As soon as they parked, mothers with their children came out to pick up meals. They had given away all 50 bags within an hour.