For many, Thanksgiving is an epic feast, featuring a table full of food. But for some, full tables aren’t always a reality. Feeding America, a nationwide network of food banks, food pantries and local meal programs, released its “Map the Meal Gap 2024” report earlier this year, and it noted that more than 135,200 New Hampshire residents are food-insecure — a year-over-year increase of more than 41,000 people. In total, about 10 percent of New Hampshire residents — and more than 13 percent of children — are food insecure, meaning they don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Several organizations in the state are doing what they can to address hunger locally. On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Jenn Morton, of End 68 Hours of Hunger-Nashua and Anne Hayes of Gather talk with host Melanie Plenda on the problems and solutions. 

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda:

First, Jenn and Anne, please tell our audience about your organizations and how they are addressing food insecurity and hunger in New Hampshire.

Jenn Morton:

End 68 Hours of Hunger focuses on feeding children who face food insecurity at home. There are End 68 Hours of Hunger programs throughout the state. Ours in Nashua distributes food bags to about 17 schools and community centers locally, and we are currently feeding approximately 480 children a week. 

Anne Hayes:

We're a broad spectrum organization. Our mission is to offer innovative programs that build food security in welcoming and dignified ways, and it ranges from a bricks-and-mortar food pantry here in Portsmouth to mobile markets. We run about 40 mobile markets every month going out on the seacoast from all the way down to Seabrook and all the way  up to Somersworth and Farmington.

We also do a lot of food repurposing. We take food that would otherwise go to waste and turn it into meals and distribute about 80,000 of those meals every year, and another 1.7 million pounds of food every year to about 10,000-plus New Hampshire residents and York County, Maine, residents every month.

Melanie Plenda:

Anne, what does food insecurity and hunger look like in New Hampshire? 

Anne Hayes:

If I were to go out this morning in front of our food pantry, there would be about 30 people waiting in line, and it's all ages. It's people who are unhoused. It's seniors on fixed incomes that have felt the pinch of increases in food prices and housing prices. It's families with small children. There was a man in our pantry today with his little two-year-old in the cart. It's a huge range of people, from individuals all the way up to families with eight people in them. It's hard to say what it looks like, because you'd be really surprised at what it looks like.

Melanie Plenda:

Jenn, how big of a problem is this? 

Jenn Morton:

I think food insecurity is kind of a hidden problem in New Hampshire and across the nation. It's something that people don't always want to admit to or talk about.

We often get children that were identified at schools for behavioral reasons. It's not that they come in saying that they're hungry, but they'll come in really tired, and when the teacher asks about how their night was, they will admit to not sleeping so well. And when they ask more about why they didn't sleep so well, it turns out they didn't have dinner the night before, so they went to bed hungry. Food insecurity and hunger doesn't always present as someone saying, “I need food.” It can be an invisible problem that especially children aren't really tuned in to. We have children who are worried or nervous about going home on Fridays because they don't know where their next meal is coming from, and that's where our bags come in. They go home with the children for the weekend so that they know that they can have a source of food while they're at home.

Melanie Plenda:

There was a rise in the number of food-insecure people in New Hampshire last year. What’s fueling that? 

Anne Hayes:

Back in 2020, when the pandemic hit, things went up a lot. We all thought that it would come back down when the pandemic ended, but I think what's happened is, with food prices going up, with housing prices going up, with the end of pandemic era benefits, people are really finding themselves super squeezed. They may have been able to set aside a little bit of money earlier on when those benefits ended, but now that money is gone, and they are forced to come and access a food pantry, which we think is actually a really good idea for people. We love to see people come here first before they end up not being able to pay their rent, not being able to keep their car on the road so they can go to work, those kinds of things. But what we're really seeing is that people are just really being squeezed by the cost of living.

Jenn Morton:

Unfortunately, pay scales have not kept up with the cost of living, especially in New Hampshire. Minimum wage jobs or jobs that are barely making a living wage, maybe $12, $14, $15 an hour is not going to pay rent for a family of four. So there aren’t as many agencies that can help with rent or utility bills, but there are lots of agencies that can help with food. We’re always glad when families are able to reach out and say, “I’m really just struggling this month.” We see it throughout the school year. Our numbers increase in September, October. People just hear about our program, they're like, “No, I'm OK. I can get through this right now.” But when we really see a spike in our bag numbers is January, February, March, when people are deciding whether to pay their utility bills for heat and hot water through the winter, or whether they're deciding to put food on their table. That is especially when our bag numbers get really high, and we're glad that they have a resource to reach out to fill that gap.

Melanie Plenda:

As a community, in your opinion, are we doing enough to ensure everyone has enough to eat? 

Anne Hayes:

I think the community is very supportive of Gather’s work and of the work of other organizations like us. I feel like we have a very, very generous community, both in terms of people who donate money and in terms of people who give their time to help.

I think on the state level, there's more that we could be doing. There's more we could be doing to make sure that people who are eligible are on SNAP. There's more we could be doing by providing breakfast before the bell for students in schools, making it easier to sign up for free and reduced price lunch at schools for children, making it easier for seniors. We did get some legislation passed this year that made it easier for seniors to sign up for SNAP [the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program], and that was great, but there's more to be done. 

Jenn Morton:

There were actually several bills in the Legislature last spring that would have expanded the free and reduced lunch program for students. Currently, there are not as many families qualifying for student free and reduced lunch as needed. It's based on the federal poverty income level, and we've definitely been able to expand other programs based on the federal poverty level, such as the Education Freedom Account program. We're giving out money for private schools, and yet we're not feeding the children who need to be there to eat.  So there's definitely ways that we need to support better at the state level.

But, as Anne said, our communities are really pitching in. No one wants to see children hungry in their communities. That has been my takeaway from my eight years volunteering here. We have a lot of volunteers that show up for any event that we plan. We do get a good amount of financial support, but at the state level and federally, there's definitely more to be done. I would love to see a statewide free breakfast and lunch program for students.

Melanie Plenda:

Along those same lines, what can we do? Is there a solution to this problem? 

Jenn Morton:

Definitely. Advocate, advocate, advocate for hunger solutions in your community. Pitch in and volunteer at your local level, but reach out to your state representatives, let them know that you care about the fact that there are hungry people in your community. We can work funding into the budget if that's something that we choose to prioritize. So I definitely encourage anyone to advocate for people, and that would be a great help. Also, local donations — both of actual food goods or monetary donations — are always appreciated to any of your local nonprofit food banks and food pantries,

Anna Hayes:

On the state level, reaching out to your state reps makes a big difference. The Hunger Free NH bill  [in the last legislative session] that we had was pretty much gutted, unfortunately, — there was a lot in there that could have really helped people. I think the more people who reach out and say something to their reps, the more likely it is that people start to recognize the problem.

Beyond that, I would say, definitely, Gather has a ton of volunteer opportunities. We work with between 40 and 50 volunteers every day to distribute the food that we distribute, and we would love to have more support in that way .And donating, because in the end in New Hampshire, more of the weight of this problem falls on nonprofits. So anything you can do to donate your time, talent or treasure is greatly appreciated. 

Melanie Plenda:

How can people help you with your work? What’s the best way to contribute?

Anne Hayes:

We can always use funding to support our work. If you go to our website, at gathernh,org,we would appreciate any contributions that people can make. Also on our website is a button that says “volunteer.” We would love to have people sign up to do that. And then just really helping by reaching out to state reps, reaching out to your neighbors, seeing if you can organize a food drive — participating in those kinds of things really makes a difference for us.

Jenn Morton:

Same here. Our website, end68hoursofhunger.org our website has your local communities listed that have End 68 Hours of Hunger programs. Most of them have buttons to give directly to your local community. Quite a few of them also have buttons to local volunteer opportunities. We also have an Amazon wish list at End 68 Hours of Hunger in Nashua. So all you have to do is visit that website, click through a wish list or a donate button, and you can really make a big difference in the life of a child in your community by helping to end their hunger situation, we really appreciate it.

Melanie Plenda:

Thank you Jenn Morton from End 68 Hours of Hunger-Nashua and Anne Hayes from Gather for discussing this really important topic today. 

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative as part of our Race and Equity Initiative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.