University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points: TABLE Volunteers
November 27, 2025 | Football, Featured Writers, Lee Pace, Extra Points, Student-Athlete Development
Gio Lopez, have you ever experienced true hunger?
"Not me, personally. People I know have been hungry and it's hard to watch. I cannot imagine it, but a lot of people do go hungry."
Benjamin Hall, have you ever gone to bed with no dinner and wondered where your breakfast might be coming from?
"No sir, I've been blessed. My parents always told me it's a good thing to give back to people who don't have enough. I honestly couldn't imagine it."
Christo Kelly, can you picture going to school hungry and having to wait until lunch to get a subsidized plate of fish sticks and boiled carrots?
"I cannot. I was very fortunate growing up. I had a great family. I was one of four brothers, so dinner was a free-for-all. But we never went without. It's hard for me to conceive."
Lopez, Hall and Kelly are joined by fellow Tar Heels Jordan Shipp, Jaiden Patterson and Trey Blue early Monday afternoon at the Carrboro headquarters of TABLE, a non-profit organization that distributes food to 1,160 under-nourished families in Orange County.
Film study, meetings and practice loom for Saturday's N.C. State game as the week evolves. The Thanksgiving holiday beckons. But the players are among more than a dozen volunteers (including some of the football coaches' wives) carving out their time and running an assembly line to stuff bags with perishable food items like sweet potatoes, onions, corn, tomatoes, radishes and other items grown by local farmers. Other volunteers later in the day will process hundreds of bags filled with non-perishables like spaghetti, green beans, rice, pinto beans, apple sauce, low-fat milk and organic fruit punch. Each day a legion of additional volunteers delivers the bags around the towns Chapel Hill and Carrboro and into the hinterlands.
"With NIL, we have some money, and it's important to give some back and give our time to the community," Shipp says. "I enjoy getting out into the schools, spending time with kids. They look up to you, and you can influence them in a positive way."
"It's super important to give back to the community," Lopez adds. "I remember where I came from. I want to do the same for others."
Last week, Shipp and Hall went on a shopping expedition to Harris Teeter, using their own money and some matching funds from the grocery chain to buy 630 pounds of food they delivered to TABLE, including two dozen turkeys and hams and 30 dozen eggs. Shipp was revved up to buy a cart full of holiday candy but succumbed to TABLE nutrition guidelines and opted for fruit snacks. Hall made an extra run to buy shelf-stable milk as TABLE's inventory had run out, and its distributor couldn't help. All of that food has been given out to local families.
"Jordan and I had fun going shopping," Hall says. "Back in August, we did a back-to-school drive to get school supplies for kids. The community supports us, so we want to do what we can to give back to them. It's a good feeling to impact people and spread God's word. We're so blessed with what we've been given with this platform, and we have an obligation to give back."
Donations of time and money like these at Thanksgiving are among a variety of initiatives from the football team throughout the year. More than 30 players convened one day last summer to build a house for Habitat for Humanity. The SECU Family House is a popular venue for community service and a way to keep the spirit alive of Tylee Craft, the Tar Heel receiver who died in October 2024 and not only stayed at the house during treatments at UNC Hospitals but was a favorite among other patients. Tar Heels can also be seen playing basketball with kids at Hargraves Community Center and visiting sick children at UNC Hospitals on the Fridays before home football games.
A number of Tar Heel sports have supported the TABLE mission, with the football connection tracing back to 2021 when QB Sam Howell used some of his first NIL money and visibility as a star athlete to support the cause and bring awareness to the issue of food insecurity. Howell recruited his successor at the position and good friend, Drake Maye, and the two of them have been the headliners at an annual springtime fundraiser that helped the organization in its $3.25 million capital campaign to purchase and upgrade a larger headquarters building in Carrboro that it occupied in early 2024.
Vaughn Moore, a 1993 Carolina graduate who's served on the Rams Club board and had significant philanthropic impact on both Carolina athletics and the University as a whole, helped lead the fundraising campaign and has been for TABLE, in his words, "a pied piper for a very important cause." That importance hit home when Moore was in the Tar Heel locker room after the 2023 overtime win over Duke in Kenan Stadium and, in the midst of the raucous celebration, one Tar Heel approached him and hugged him. That player had benefitted from a similar food bank program in another city.
"He had tears in his eyes," Moore says. "In all the emotion after a big win, what he said was this: 'I was one of those kids who didn't have enough food. Charities like TABLE saved my family. What you're doing is really, really important.'"
That played out this week in Chapel Hill and Carrboro.
"The families receiving the turkeys and hams were full of smiles showing gratitude," says Katisha Paige, TABLE's director of development. "One parent said, 'I am so grateful for this program. As a single mom, it's a blessing to have this help. The cost of living keeps going up and it is hard for a single parent.'"
In the ultra-competitive world of college football, it just goes to show there are many ways of keeping score.
"Hope begins with a full plate." Donations to TABLE can made here and are much appreciated in this holiday season.
"Not me, personally. People I know have been hungry and it's hard to watch. I cannot imagine it, but a lot of people do go hungry."
Benjamin Hall, have you ever gone to bed with no dinner and wondered where your breakfast might be coming from?
"No sir, I've been blessed. My parents always told me it's a good thing to give back to people who don't have enough. I honestly couldn't imagine it."
Christo Kelly, can you picture going to school hungry and having to wait until lunch to get a subsidized plate of fish sticks and boiled carrots?
"I cannot. I was very fortunate growing up. I had a great family. I was one of four brothers, so dinner was a free-for-all. But we never went without. It's hard for me to conceive."
Lopez, Hall and Kelly are joined by fellow Tar Heels Jordan Shipp, Jaiden Patterson and Trey Blue early Monday afternoon at the Carrboro headquarters of TABLE, a non-profit organization that distributes food to 1,160 under-nourished families in Orange County.
Film study, meetings and practice loom for Saturday's N.C. State game as the week evolves. The Thanksgiving holiday beckons. But the players are among more than a dozen volunteers (including some of the football coaches' wives) carving out their time and running an assembly line to stuff bags with perishable food items like sweet potatoes, onions, corn, tomatoes, radishes and other items grown by local farmers. Other volunteers later in the day will process hundreds of bags filled with non-perishables like spaghetti, green beans, rice, pinto beans, apple sauce, low-fat milk and organic fruit punch. Each day a legion of additional volunteers delivers the bags around the towns Chapel Hill and Carrboro and into the hinterlands.
"With NIL, we have some money, and it's important to give some back and give our time to the community," Shipp says. "I enjoy getting out into the schools, spending time with kids. They look up to you, and you can influence them in a positive way."
"It's super important to give back to the community," Lopez adds. "I remember where I came from. I want to do the same for others."
Last week, Shipp and Hall went on a shopping expedition to Harris Teeter, using their own money and some matching funds from the grocery chain to buy 630 pounds of food they delivered to TABLE, including two dozen turkeys and hams and 30 dozen eggs. Shipp was revved up to buy a cart full of holiday candy but succumbed to TABLE nutrition guidelines and opted for fruit snacks. Hall made an extra run to buy shelf-stable milk as TABLE's inventory had run out, and its distributor couldn't help. All of that food has been given out to local families.
"Jordan and I had fun going shopping," Hall says. "Back in August, we did a back-to-school drive to get school supplies for kids. The community supports us, so we want to do what we can to give back to them. It's a good feeling to impact people and spread God's word. We're so blessed with what we've been given with this platform, and we have an obligation to give back."
Donations of time and money like these at Thanksgiving are among a variety of initiatives from the football team throughout the year. More than 30 players convened one day last summer to build a house for Habitat for Humanity. The SECU Family House is a popular venue for community service and a way to keep the spirit alive of Tylee Craft, the Tar Heel receiver who died in October 2024 and not only stayed at the house during treatments at UNC Hospitals but was a favorite among other patients. Tar Heels can also be seen playing basketball with kids at Hargraves Community Center and visiting sick children at UNC Hospitals on the Fridays before home football games.
A number of Tar Heel sports have supported the TABLE mission, with the football connection tracing back to 2021 when QB Sam Howell used some of his first NIL money and visibility as a star athlete to support the cause and bring awareness to the issue of food insecurity. Howell recruited his successor at the position and good friend, Drake Maye, and the two of them have been the headliners at an annual springtime fundraiser that helped the organization in its $3.25 million capital campaign to purchase and upgrade a larger headquarters building in Carrboro that it occupied in early 2024.
Vaughn Moore, a 1993 Carolina graduate who's served on the Rams Club board and had significant philanthropic impact on both Carolina athletics and the University as a whole, helped lead the fundraising campaign and has been for TABLE, in his words, "a pied piper for a very important cause." That importance hit home when Moore was in the Tar Heel locker room after the 2023 overtime win over Duke in Kenan Stadium and, in the midst of the raucous celebration, one Tar Heel approached him and hugged him. That player had benefitted from a similar food bank program in another city.
"He had tears in his eyes," Moore says. "In all the emotion after a big win, what he said was this: 'I was one of those kids who didn't have enough food. Charities like TABLE saved my family. What you're doing is really, really important.'"
That played out this week in Chapel Hill and Carrboro.
"The families receiving the turkeys and hams were full of smiles showing gratitude," says Katisha Paige, TABLE's director of development. "One parent said, 'I am so grateful for this program. As a single mom, it's a blessing to have this help. The cost of living keeps going up and it is hard for a single parent.'"
In the ultra-competitive world of college football, it just goes to show there are many ways of keeping score.
"Hope begins with a full plate." Donations to TABLE can made here and are much appreciated in this holiday season.
Players Mentioned
Wide Receiver
/ Football
Running Back
/ Football
Offensive Line
/ Football
Defensive Back
/ Football
Wide Receiver
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