Amy Jones shares statistics for the PORCH-Durham program.

Jones’ leadership of PORCH roughly coincides with the time Courtyards at Southpoint residents began providing food to the organization. Dick Fox connected Courtyards at Southpoint with PORCH and served as our sole neighborhood coordinator until May of this year, when Paige Boyette joined him. 

Each month, PORCH provides 4,000 pounds — two tons — of food to at-risk children and their families, Jones said.

And while Courtyards at Southpoint’s contribution always has been valuable, it has grown significantly. In 2024, our neighborhood contributed an average of 125 pounds of food a month, she reported. The first half of 2025, the average monthly contribution rose to 168 pounds. And in the second half of this year, the neighborhood’s average contribution each month has escalated to 302 pounds.

At an estimated value of $1.92 per pound, that totals a monthly contribution worth $580.

“You should be incredibly proud of yourself and of your neighbors,” Jones said. “You are part of a large impact that is happening in our community.”

PORCH functions by gathering food from neighborhoods and groups across the county and then distributing it through partners — nonprofit organizations and schools — that work directly with children and their families who are vulnerable to food insecurity.

From its founding in 2011, PORCH-Durham has been a unique food supplier. “Since the beginning, it’s been in Durham, for Durham, and it’s all grassroots,” Jones noted. “All the food we distribute is donated by neighbors. We don’t access food banks or ‘resource diverted’ (out-of-date) food from grocery stores.

“The spirit of PORCH is ‘neighbors helping neighbors.’ We’re kind of proud of the fact we are not drawing from food banks. We are generating a different source for food.”

PORCH’s model of providing neighbor-donated food offers a self-esteem benefit to children who receive it, she said. “Because all our food is donated — you purchased it at a grocery store — it looks like the food in everybody else’s pantry. Kids bringing it home can feel good about it.”

PORCH’s model differs from other food pantries and food-distribution programs, Jones said. For example, “I personally do not know the name or the face of a single person who eats PORCH’s food, and that’s on purpose,” she illustrated.

Rather than operate a pantry or deliver food directly to children and their families, PORCH works with partner organizations that fill out food requests each month and distribute food to people they know.

“At the beginning of every month, we distribute food order forms to 20 partners, and they have a week to get back to me,” she said. Then PORCH volunteers receive food, fill orders and provide it to the partners.

“We bring food to partner organizations that serve children and families,” she explained. “It may be a preschool, or social-worker organizations, public schools, Head Start, Girls and Boys Clubs. … They provide the food in a thoughtful and dignified way.

“I don’t know who’s ultimately getting the food. But the preschool director does. The social worker does.”

PORCH accepts every food — and cash — donation except expired food, she said. It also functions on the work of volunteers. Jones is the Durham organization’s sole staff member, although PORCH is looking to add an associate director.

Although some feeding programs have relied on government support and have had to cut back this year, PORCH’s work has expanded, Jones said. In part, the expansion has happened because organizations that depend on federal funds have had to scale back, even as the number of families needing support has increased.

And Courtyards at Southpoint residents are among “so many generous neighbors in Durham” who have enabled PORCH’s growth, she added.

“We hear people say, ‘With the state of things, it feels like so much is out of our control.’ But there is something you can do: You can help your neighbor; you can make an impact in Durham,” she stressed. “You can be proud you are part of a community that helps your neighbors.”

To learn more about PORCH, visit its website. To subscribe to its newsletter, click the link on the top-left of the homepage. And to learn more about PORCH in our neighborhood, contact Dick or Paige. You can find their contact information in Slack.