10 July/August 2014
When snow assaulted Chapel Hill in February, Ashton Chatham Tippins ’ 12 knew the
backpacks full of canned soup, produce and milk
couldn’t wait another day to be delivered. She and a
volunteer at TABLE headed out.
As many in town were mired in traffic, they kept
pushing. They made it to an apartment building in the
Northside neighborhood, where two small girls were
watching out a window. When the girls came to the
door, one turned to the other: “See? I told you they
would come.”
That’s why Tippins does what she does. “Knowing
that we’re making a difference in their lives … all of
that is very satisfying,” said Tippins, who was hired
as TABLE’s program manager in August 2012 and
became executive director the next March. She was a
junior majoring in Spanish and communications when
she began volunteering at TABLE; now, more than half
of TABLE’s 30 volunteers are UNC students, teaching
kids at after-school centers how to make simple,
healthy snacks and sending them home with recipes
and ingredients. In the summer, TABLE distributes food
backpacks through day camps.
Chapel Hill has a reputation as being affluent;
statistics from the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system
tell a different story. “Thirty percent of those kids are
on the free- or reduced-price lunch program,” Tippins
said. “That’s 1,800 elementary school kids who don’t
have access to free lunches on weekends and school
holidays. We try to fill that gap.”
In 2008, TABLE’s first year, it sent food home
with 12 kids. By 2013, the number had increased to
221. Tippins has a goal of helping 400 children by the
end of this year, which means she has to line up the
resources first.
“When we start serving children, we have to make
sure we can continue to serve them,” Tippins said.
“That’s a promise we make to the kids.”
— Nancy E. Oates
PHOTO BY JASON D. SMITH ’ 94
Small, Hungry but Hopeful
