Over the course of a week, Jana Schaefer’s house has become a hive of volunteer activity. A spare room on the first floor is a fully functioning food pantry, stocked with donated canned goods, diapers and baby formula. Bulging bags are lined up on the driveway outside. Volunteer Heather Dinolfo walks through the process.
“We’re putting in paper towels and toilet paper because those are items that are always needed,” she says.
Schaefer is inside, tracking requests and coordinating with her fellow volunteers.
“We are packing food boxes and we are sending people out to deliver them to people's doorsteps,” she said. “The reason for that is our community that we're helping feels afraid to leave their doors right now. They are afraid to go to work. They're afraid to take their kids to school. They're afraid to go grocery shopping.”
Schaefer is part of a group of South Charlotte parents who began to act after hearing about families in their school community holed up at home amid last week’s Border Patrol surge in Charlotte. Their efforts grew quickly. They created an online form for parents to request items.
Schaefer says 200 volunteers have delivered around 500 food boxes across multiple school communities — the volunteers are careful not to name which, given ongoing concerns about immigration enforcement.
“I think it is important because it is our immediate community,” she said. “It’s my son’s classmates. It’s the parents that are at school functions with me. It is, like, in my backyard, it’s in all of our backyards. It’s our community. And we as a community cannot just sit by while people go hungry and babies don’t have formula.”
While masked agents drove around Charlotte in unmarked SUVs, parents became a visible force of activism and volunteerism. Elsewhere in Charlotte, parents have been seen standing outside area schools to act as a friendly presence for students coming and going to school and to watch out for any Border Patrol activity. Other PTA groups have organized similar food drives. This group of South Charlotte parents has also worked to arrange rides to bring kids to and from school when their parents are too afraid to leave their homes.
Whitney Blumenthal is a volunteer who’s been driving three students to and from school every day for about a week. She said at first, there was a lot of fear.
“I was pinning Air Tags on a stranger’s kids as the sun came up last Wednesday morning,” she said. “So they were really afraid to even trust any help.”
But Blumenthal says a week of rides and post-school McDonald’s trips have helped them forge close bonds. She said she was motivated to step in after hearing the high number of absences reported across CMS schools last week.
“It hit me like a ton of bricks,” Blumenthal said. “It was like, OK, we need to find a way to get these babies to school and we need to get food in their bellies. So we worked firsthand with the schools in the beginning, found out which families were in need and immediately jumped into action.”
Supporters of the Trump administration’s deportation push argue these operations are necessary. They allege that illegal immigration in recent years has led to higher crime in cities like Charlotte. Officials say they’re going after only who they call “the worst of the worst.” But Schaefer says these operations have a broader impact on communities.
“I think when a group of people is too afraid to leave their doors, that is, that is just wrong,” Schaefer said. “That is a humanitarian issue. Like people should not be without food in their house because they don't feel safe to work or because they don't feel safe to go grocery shopping. Kids should not be left out from school because their parents are afraid for their safety.”
Soon, the volunteer effort is relocating out of Schaefer’s house and to a new location to continue its efforts. Schaefer says Monday saw 70 requests for rides to school — the highest number since the volunteer efforts began, and a sign that reports of Border Patrol’s departure may not have immediately quelled fears.
