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7,000 Children in Wake
County are homeless

18.0% of Children Live in
Food Insecure Homes

Motel Connect

Motel Connect is a volunteer-based program that addresses food insecurities families living in motels and hotels in Wake County. Weekly, Motel Connect delivers much needed fresh and self-stable groceries for families–giving them nutritional meals and a financial reprieve.

Over the past year, Motel Connect made more than 1,600 deliveries to families living in hotels.

Motels: The Modern Face of Homelessness

With housing becoming increasingly unaffordable, more and more families are turning to hotel rooms for shelter. While they do provide a level of safety and security, ,otel rooms do not have a full working kitchens. Many of these families are living in a single motel room with onlynot enough beds. Children are sleeping on floor palettes, there is very little privacy, no room to play, and rarely is there green space for children to get excercise.

Families we Serve

Our volunteers bring healthy, fresh food to families in motels or recently transitioning into an apartment or house.

“59% of Americans are ONE paycheck away from homelessness.”

When a family loses the income that they need for an apartment, a motel can seem like a good stop gap measure. Rather than scrambling to find a security deposit and $1,200 for monthly rent, they only need to provide a fraction of that amount at a time. Week by week. But it still adds up to more than some house mortgages.


HELP US HELP FAMILIES

Each week a group of dedicated volunteers pick up boxes from the Food Bank of NC. They are full of perishable and non-perishable foods to deliver to every family that has made a request or was referred by a Case Manager. Our main goal is to alleviate food insecurities, enhance nutrition and promote resilience. By providing food subsidies families are able to save more for apartment deposits, fees or other emergencies.


Partner with us!

You can make a difference in the lives of those living in transitional housing and struggling with access to healthy and affordable food.

Organizations, churches, or individuals who want to partner with us can organize their own drives and fundraisers to help local families during this transitional period of homelessness. Motel Connect will gladly pick up your group donations. We never know how many food insecure families that we will have on our schedule each week, but we are dedicated to serving them all. You can make a difference in the lives of those living in transitional housing, especially the children, by partnering with Motel Connect.

  • Packing hygiene and laundry care kits including deodorants, feminine products, bar soaps, laundry soap* stain removers. When a group collaborates to pack care kits, this alleviates financial stress for our families. More importantly it enables adults and children to wear clean clothes and feel and look their best, boosting confidence for the whole family. During Covid-19, hand sanitizer and masks are also needed. *Laundry soap sheets such as Green Earth brand, are now a better alternative to large plastic bottles.

  • Donate an electric skillet or crockpot: Help reduce dependency on fast food and encourage healthier choices. These appliances allow adults a way to cook more nutritious meals and provide for their loved ones.

  • Grocery store gift cards give Motel Connect families the freedom to grocery shop and supplement our food boxes. $50-$100 will provide nutritious food and urgent supplies to a small family living in transitional housing for one week.

  • Recently one group filled tote bags with art supplies for each child in the Motel Connect Program. This encouraged creativity and expression for the children, plus it put big smiles on their faces. Additionally, it aided students with supplies for at home learning during the pandemic. Art supplies and crafts were also provided for the parents, which allowed valuable hands on interaction with their children.

 

VOLUNTEER
Deliver food to our families living in motels or just transitioning into an apartment or housing.
PARTNER
Provide ongoing necessities such as paper products, baby diapers & formula and feminine products.
DONATE
Emergency assistance for a motel night or gift cards for urgent food supplies or medical needs.

Contact Us