SPEAKER_00 0:00

You know, I'm sure we'll get into some legislation and policy, but even with school lunches is a great example. Right over the border, you can be one school away in Maine and have universal lunch and breakfast for every child in the state. But if you happen to be born one town away, then that's not something that you get.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Wow. Universal school lunches and breakfasts in Maine. Now, I don't want to say that it's because they have legalized marijuana, but I'm not going to not say that it's possible that the revenue that they get from that might help paying for these programs. It's a previous episode. You're listening to New Hampshire has to choose, and I am your host, Liz Canada. It is Thanksgiving week, and one way to be the most prepared you can possibly be for this coming Thursday as you sit around the dinner table with people who you might not often see is catch up on any episodes you may have missed. Because who knows how many times people are going to ask, why is housing so expensive? Why are property taxes going up? What the heck is a school voucher? Or, you know, want to talk about food. And this episode is all about food. I got to interview Kate Constantine from Gather, and we talked about food pantries and snap benefits and farmers and food waste and school meals. And I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that students eat at school and that we make it accessible for students to eat. But I will leave that whole conversation to the two of us. What I will say though is there is a moment in the episode where I literally cannot believe what Kate is telling me, and I audibly say, hold on, rewind because I am so flabbergasted. And what she's alluding to in that moment was a debate that happened with the state budget this past year. And if you missed the episodes with Phil Slotton from the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, I had two episodes with him. I would strongly encourage going back and listening to those two. Because what our state lawmakers prioritize in terms of how to spend money impacts so many people in our state. Literally impacts everybody in our state, actually. But it is so clear what is at stake. If you would like to support the show, please visit patreon.com slash nh has issues. If you have an idea for an episode, send me an email. Newhampshire has issues at gmail.com. And of course, always share these episodes with people who might be interested, uh especially if you might be having dinner with them on Thursday. And you want them to do their homework too. All right, I'm gonna pass it back over to me. Welcome to New Hampshire Has Issues. The podcast that dares to ask, how important really is food? Do people really need food? Yeah. That's my that's my uh tagline of the day. Uh Kate, do you have one ready for today's episode?

SPEAKER_00 2:55

One day maybe we'll evolve to the point in which we don't need healthy food in our bodies in order to survive. But until that day comes, why don't we feed people?

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Why don't we feed people? All right. I am your host, Liz Canada, and joining me today is the events and engagement manager at Gather, Kate Constantine. I know it is a very busy time of year for your organization. So thank you so much for spending some time chatting.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Thanks, Liz. I'm excited to finally talk with you. It's a nice break to have after hauling hundreds of turkeys into a walk-in freezer over the past couple days, which is what we were doing. We have a we have an incredible operations team. We really try to be very boots on the ground. And a lot of times that means, you know, in order to make sure the peep food goes out to people, it is the business of a lot of the times making sure that food goes into a place, which for us means our walk-in fridges and freezers. And this time of year, it means calling 15, 20 pound turkeys, which are fantastic, and we're lucky to be able to have them, but they need to go somewhere. So the work that goes into a food access organization is just as much a process of operations and logistics as any other organization. And uh, I'm very lucky that I get to work with a crew that love strapping on their boots and and lifting heavy stuff and moving, we move thousands of pounds a day.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Wow. That's incredible. I was just at a bakery uh yesterday, actually. Took our younger kiddo. We went in and he's like, Can I get a super extra large hot chocolate? I was like, sure. He's like, Can I get a triple chocolate brownie? I was like, sure. And there was a flyer with QR codes for Gather to donate to Gather. And I was like, I'm interviewing her tomorrow. This is so great. That's right here. So which bakery? Let's give him a shout out. So it was Ginger Fox Bakery, and I had never been in there. My God, incredible place. But yeah, it was so great to be able to get some treats, do a little donation right there. But Kate, maybe you can start with telling me what does Gather do? What does your organization do?

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Yeah. So Gather, we were actually founded in 1816. We're one of the oldest social service agencies in the nation. 1816? Yep. 1816. 1816. Yep. Wow. Gather has been around in a similar capacity since then. We were founded by women at Strawberry Bank who are feeding families of fishermen while they are away at sea, you know. Wow. Coming from Portsmouth. We've always been in Portsmouth. I think a lot of people now that, you know, we can get into the, you know, the assumptions that come into being based in a town that's now very affluent, but a lot of a lot of people forget that Portsmouth really started off a very poor working class town, being one of the largest ports in America, especially in the post-colonial era. A lot of small working families. And so our organization has started really at the grassroots level by groups of community members that started small pantries and meal programs and wanted to make sure that their neighbors were fed when they didn't have the workforce in town being able to come back and provide for them. And, you know, we've kind of existed in that type of capacity for centuries now. A lot of people probably remember us as the Seacoast Family Food Pantry. For years, we were based out of Portsmouth City Hall, just a small mom and pop food pantry. And in 2016, we moved to West Road in Portsmouth and became a larger scale pantry warehouse. And around 2019-2020, when we started our Meals for Kids program, distributing food to kiddos when they were out of school, we started a mobile market program and said, hey, can how can we move this mission and bring it to folks across the Seacoast and address some transportation issues? So now we're on uh Heritage Ave in Portsmouth. We have a 16,000, excuse me, 18,000 square foot community food center where we're able to provide our pantry market as we always have, a welcoming, dignified shopping, grocery store-style shopping experience for folks. And we're also able to offer, we're hoping to do some more programming soon. We have a large-scale warehouse where we pack up trucks for our mobile market programs. And then we also have a kitchen where we're able to repurpose food we cannot use and turn to delicious prepared meals. So the mission still remains the same of being able to provide food for families in need in a very welcoming and dignified way. We always say that we're a low-barrier, high dignity choice model. So we want to make it easy for anyone who needs food to be able to access our services. If you live or work in New Hampshire or Maine, you are eligible to come and receive our services. And we also want to make sure that when people come through, that we're treating with them with respect and that the food that we're able to provide them is dignified. We also always emphasize choice because we want to provide healthy food, but we also want to make sure that, you know, there's no shame or stigma. And whatever you know that is going to be good for you and your family and keep you fed is what we want to make sure that you're able to have. And also recognizing that, you know, you don't have to have a certain amount of money to have dietary restrictions, to have needs and opinions and what you want. So we really try to provide as much as we can for folks and in a very nice setting. We really appreciate and value the relationships that our volunteers and staff have with our members. We call anyone that comes together a member, but I know that that word sometimes people think, oh, is like is it like a secret club I have to be eligible? And like, no, we're you're a member.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Secret club is in you live or work in New Hampshire. Yeah. Not that secret of a club. So you keep using the word dignity and dignified. Can you like just tell me more about like where that comes from and why that specific word, why that's maybe a priority for Gather?

SPEAKER_00 9:03

We recognize that a lot of people, it takes a lot for them to even just come through our doors. So when they do get to the step where they recognize, okay, this may be something that I need in order to be able to pay the bills, to be able to put food on the table for my family, to make ends meet. We don't want to further stigmatize folks and keep them from wanting to come through our doors again because what we're providing them is not, you know, is not dignified or not respectful. So when they come in, we want to make it really seem like it's not, oh, I'm at I'm at a food pantry. It's everyone's looking at me. It's very sterile environment. And I think especially in New Hampshire, we have this very rugged individualistic mentality.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Boy, oh boy, do we.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Oh boy, do we. And I think the last peop thing that people want to feel when they come through our door is, oh, I'm getting a handout here. It's not a handout. It's it's a hand-in, as we like to say. This is a place that our community can come together from all walks of life, whether it be people that don't need our services or volunteers or community partners that are coming to provide food. It's somewhere that people can come in and breathe a sigh of relief because ultimately when you're accessing food services, that's what it should be, is you know that you don't have to worry about being able to eat and being able to nourish your body that week because you have food available to you. So that's why that's why dignity is really important to us. And I love, I love the way that our market is set up. I think a lot of people may be surprised at the amount of young people like my age, you know, people in their early to mid-20s trying to make a living on the seacoast that come through our doors and a lot of young parents as well. And I think it's really nice for them to come in and feel like, okay, when I'm coming in with my kid, they just think that they're at the grocery store. They don't even realize that they're, you know, coming and seeking a food pantry.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Yeah, maybe you could talk a bit about that because I would imagine that there might be a listener who may not have any experience like seeing a food pantry or what one might look like or what it might be like to visit one or need one. So maybe you could like do like an audio walkthrough for us. What would it be like to go together and and go through the experience of getting some food?

SPEAKER_00 11:25

People come in, they sign in. If they're not signed up, then we'll welcome them, we'll give them a registration form. They can sign up really quickly. Once you sign up, once you register, you can start shopping that day. And we see a lot of people that we say live or work in New Hampshire or Maine. So we see a lot of people that, you know, maybe they technically live in Amesbury, but they work in Portsmouth or Hampton. Um, so we just need them to show that they have a, you know, pay stub or something that proves that they live or work in New Hampshire. And they can come in, let us know how many people are in their family, and once they're signed up, we'll have one of our volunteers at the front desk greet them, give them a shopping cart, and they start walking through. And we really set the pantry up like it's a grocery store. So there's aisles of dry goods, personal care, even pet food we always have to offer. We don't want anyone to have to give up their pet because they can't afford to feed them. And the thing that we really want to dry people's eye to is we have several fridges filled with uh fresh produce. That's what we're really trying to emphasize and what we're most proud of. So they come along with their shopping cart. We have volunteers that show them how to go through. We also have a freezer area with proteins. We let them know if they have any restrictions, like if they prefer plant-based items or um lamb or anything like that, gluten-free items that can be available to them. But we really want them to shop through and pick out what they need.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

So it is very much like a what I might experience when I go to a grocery store. Like I'm going in, I'm shopping, I've got my shopping cart, I'm getting my things. What is the expectation of someone who's there? So they register to be a member of Gather. And then what does that look like after they are done shopping for their food?

SPEAKER_00 13:19

You know, we'll encourage folks. A lot of people don't know that in addition to our pantry, we also have the mobile markets. So we usually will give them, we have a calendar of all of our markets, schedules, even other programming that we're doing. And we try to encourage people, okay. All right, you live in Dover. We do a couple markets in Dover. And then just try to kind of, you know, let people go and see what they need because we see people that come in that month, maybe in the month that they need us, and we don't see them for a few months, and then the next month they come back. I often hear from members, you know, they'll come in, they'll sign in, they'll say, Oh, I haven't been here in a while. And we say, That's okay. That's that's why we're here. You don't need to prove to us why you need to come back or prove to us why you have to keep coming back. So I think the kind of expectation really is just that people come when they need it because we we don't want people to be late on paying their rent because we don't want people to become unhoused. Because once you become unhoused, it's really hard to get back into stable housing. Yeah. We don't want people to become unbanked because they've had to take out too many loans or they've had to become overdrawn in their accounts because it's very hard to be rebanked. Um, so we want to always be there for folks and have them recognize that this is an option. The thing that I hear a lot from some of our members is, well, I don't need it as much as other people. You know, we have we have folks that are chronically food insecure, um, folks with disabilities, folks that are in house, a lot of seniors are chronically food insecure. But they're not the only ones that need help because especially right now, it's hard for someone that makes on paper a good living to be able to afford groceries.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

I want to get to that because that's such a huge thing right now. But maybe you can define like what does chronically food insecure mean?

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Aaron Powell The chronically food insecure is, you know, a term that's used for people that don't have a consistent source of income or for whatever reasons and whatever circumstances, they are always needing assistance with food or housing. And they may never get out of that cycle. And that's true for a lot of a lot of seniors, which is I think people would be surprised the amount of seniors that we see. Because once you have to retire and you're only living on your social security, which these days is not a lot, social security and Medicaid, then you don't have anything else in your income. You don't have any flexible spending. So you are from month to month relying on a tiny paycheck, and that doesn't leave a lot of room for food. Maybe that leaves room for your housing costs or your heating costs, but it doesn't leave a lot for anything else. Same thing with our unhoused when you barely have the income to be able to get stable housing, or even, you know, if you're living outside and you want to make sure that you're spending the income that you do have to be able to have stable shelter, to be able to make sure that you have a good tent or sleeping bag or fuel, anything like that. Um, you don't have a lot of flexible spending for food. And a lot of people that we see that aren't chronically food insecure, yeah, it may be, it may be something like, okay, the next time I really have to go in for a fix on my car, I may not have a lot left in the bank for groceries.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

It is so interesting to hear about buying food as like flexible spending, as like, oh, I'll I'll have like the flexibility to buy food. Like that's what we're really talking about here with like those who are food insecure, like buying groceries and food as being flexible. It's just like part of part of my everyday routine. I just go and I get a coffee or I go and I get my breakfast. It's not like that for everybody, very much so.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

And a lot of people that say, oh, well, I've always I've always budgeted my whole life and I never have to, you know, that's a part of my essential spending. Why would I ever have to think about that? But a lot of people never have to think about that. So you think that, you know, just by budgeting or being fine fiscally responsible, that that makes you, you know, that makes you immune from needing that. But it's it's not the case, it's not the case for everyone. And then there are some things that become more essential than food. You know, if you're a parent and you have to worry about formula, it's dangerous for you to have to cut on formula diapers for your child. So sometimes food does become, you know, flexible spending, or if I have the money this month. Or a lot of people don't recognize, okay, you may technically have money for food that, but that food might might not be the food that you need to be able to sustain a healthy life. And that's where the question of food insecurity really comes into play. And I think something that we try to emphasize to gather is is okay, people may technically have the money to buy food, but food that is not going to keep them healthy or sustained. We want to make sure that people have the kinds of food that are gonna set them up to have a better life because as soon as you're not putting the good foods into your body, then you may need to be at the doctor more. And if you already don't have flexible money with your health insurance, you don't have the money to spend on large co-pays, then you're setting yourself up for a life of medical bills. And it's really, it's all it's all connected.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

It is all connected. You said much earlier how so many seniors are finding themselves in a position of being food insecure or having like very limited amount of money to be able to pay for food. And on a previous episode, I had Erica and Lauren on from Families in Transition, and they shared with me, and this was a shocking figure that they said to me, the largest growth in terms of homelessness in New Hampshire are seniors. Like it's those are the folks who are becoming unhoused. That was very surprising for me to hear because it's like you don't assume that that's how folks are spending their later years, but the costs of everything right now are very significant. So let me just take a step back, Kate, and ask you, because I'd like to start episodes. I know we're like deep into the episode now, but I'd like to have like a simple question, which is in this case, okay, it's the seacoast in New Hampshire. How big of an issue really is this? Like, come on, Kate. Yeah. I say sarcastically, but like how big of an issue really is this in New Hampshire?

SPEAKER_00 19:48

You have no idea how often I have to answer that question.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Probably not from a sarcastic sort of perspective.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

No, from a genuine perspective. And it's it's not always and it's not, and it's not a lot of times it's I don't even want to say it's coming from a place of ignorance. It's it's the assumption that we have living in this area.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Yeah. And what we see and don't see, right? Like I think there's a lot of what we're able to see on our day-to-day and who we interact with regularly may not match the people who actually live in our communities overall. So you have to answer this question a lot. I'm sorry, Kate. No, that's okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

That's a good that's a good tee-off, actually. And I think my kind of immediate response when I hear that is, well, when's the last time you drove up and down Route One? Because, you know, you can see a lot of people who are unhoused walking up and down the street. However, that's not the main, that's not the main issue. Sometimes the same people that say to me, Well, is food insecurity really a problem on the seacoast, are also asking me how I afford to live in Portsmouth because they know that the rents are really high and they know that I'm in my early 20s and I work for a nonprofit. And I say, Well, therein lies your, therein lies your answer. People can't afford to live here. And for a lot of, let's let's say, let's use seniors again as an example. If you've been if you've lived in the Seacoast for many years of your life, you may be getting priced out of your apartment you lived in forever or your house. You can't continue to afford to pay the rates because they're skyrocketing. And the waiting lists for these housing authorities are astronomical. And we work with we work with ports of housing a lot. They're doing fantastic work, but you know, they will admit to you that it's it's hard being able to pass the zoning permits to build more affordable housing. And a lot of people that could benefit from affordable housing on paper make too much money. And that's a big problem we're seeing right now is the people that are falling through the middle, that the benefits that people could receive. A lot of people, we have an issue right now where a lot of people aren't signing up for SNAP, for instance, because it's a very complicated process or they don't know how to sign up because they don't make it super simple. But a lot of people don't sign up for SNAP because they know that they make too much money, because the maximum income required for SNAP benefits hasn't changed since 2021.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

It's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

So, you know, we see a lot of people that are making traditionally, you know, good upper to middle class on paper jobs that it's not cutting it anymore. And in an area where cost of living is very expensive, it's easy to imagine how a few changes in life circumstances could you leave you lead you to needing to walk through our doors.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

Even if you've budgeted diligently your whole life, like one healthcare situation can set you back. How many folks are impacted, Kate?

SPEAKER_00 22:41

We serve over 10,000 individuals a month. A month? A month between our pantry and our mobile markets. And that's we serve people from all up and down Maine, New Hampshire. And I think a lot of people would be surprised the people that we see from, you know, northern New Hampshire, because when you get to less densely populated areas, there's not as many services. We're very lucky we are the largest agency of the New Hampshire Food Bank. The New Hampshire Food Bank who oversees all of the food access organizations in the state. We are their largest agencies, and we're very lucky and grateful to do that. But even knowing how many people we are able to serve, there's so many people that we're not capturing. Because again, a lot of people that could benefit from us we know won't come. Whether they're just don't know where to go, how to access it. Uh, we try as much as possible to make information easy to access. I know a lot of organizations right now are working on creating more comprehensive ways to find food resources. Myself and Marie Collins from Cultivate, which is uh PharmaCue and New England BIPOCFS recently made a food access resource PDF that folks can download. Um, but that's only but we were only really, really able to capture, you know, hours and times for organizations in York County, Rockingham, and Stratford County. If you're from a more rural area where there's not that many comprehensive resources, it's kind of hard to find. And then there's also folks that just don't want to come access our services out of fear, whether that's fear of their immigration status being exposed or fear of anyone in their life, their family seeing them at a food pantry. That's also part of the reason we changed our name from the Seekers Family Food Pantry to Gather, because we started our mobile market program. We didn't want anyone to not come to our markets that needed it because they didn't want someone in their life to see them in front of a truck that says food pantry. Gather is a lot more of a, a lot more of an approachable title. People don't necessarily know. We really wanted to break down the stigma and make it more of a community resource and help people to be able to understand that they haven't failed. I think it's it's a New England mentality, it's an American mentality. Okay, if you haven't, if you haven't provided for your family, then you've failed as I failed as a parent, I failed as an American, you know, I failed as a human being because I because what? Because expenses are too much, because you got laid off, because your income doesn't cut the way it used to because a car broke down?

SPEAKER_01 25:20

There's so much shame and stigma in all of this. I don't know how one would even comprehensively dismantle that. Like that would be such a hard thing to get to the bottom of. And maybe it also involves me, host of the show, listener of the show, of like, how are we contributing to that shame and stigma? Like, what do I do, or how do I behave in this world, or what do I think about? Like, how do we sort of unpack that and and attack that individually too?

SPEAKER_00 25:50

I've worked in food access for almost six years now, and I still don't have the answer to that question. It's K.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

I I was hoping you'd solve the problem for it.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

I know. I'm working on it. No. You're working on it. I I thought I had seen everything, and you think that food is kind of an apolitical issue until uh you have a federal It's food.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

It's food. Uh people need to eat, but until you have a federal snap cut and then you see the ways in which people are reacting to it online and saying, you know, well, people that have EBT cards are are buying things that they shouldn't, and kind of policing what people do with, you know, how people feed their families. It's incredibly frustrating. And you think you've seen it all.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

I cannot wrap my head around anyone trying to tell someone who someone who is accessing food via SNAP benefits. Like it means that they have a particular income, an amount of money coming in that is far lower than many people to criticize how they use that little amount of money that they are receiving to be able to get food. It is such a situation of punching down on people in such a significant way. And I do not understand why we are doing this to people. Why would anyone want to do that to someone? I I don't I don't understand it, Kate. Explain to me, why are people like this?

SPEAKER_00 27:11

Why are people I let me break down why are people psychologically no? I think in my in my opinion, and this is coming from my personal opinion, yeah. You know, there's no there's no backing to prove this, but I think that we are a very egotistical culture. And I think that our I think that's actually a scientific fact. I think that's a scientific fact. Um but I think that our a lot of people feel better knowing that we're all vulnerable as human beings and as citizens. Any of us could face circumstances that lead us to needing these services anytime. But I think that for some people, knowing that they have that vulnerability for them to knock people down and criticize other people makes them think, okay, well, I'm di I'm different from those people. I'm okay. I make the right choices. Right. I budget, I do, you know, I'm doing the right things. But then it increasingly adds to the stigma because then if you do get to the point where you, even if you're not doing the right things or you do the wrong thing, whatever it, whatever it is, I don't care that needs you to come to the point. I don't care what you do to need food. Right. Right. And I know that that's a hot take for some people.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

I don't care. I want people if you need food, you should get food.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

I don't care. I want people to be able to survive. And I know that some people may disagree with that.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

Wow. Controversy.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

I think it it increase the it increases that stigma, right? Because if you've lived your whole life with the mentality of, well, I'm different because I don't need that, and then you get to the point where you do need that, then you don't want to admit it.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

Right. Your sense of identity too. Yeah, like your self-identity of like, that was my worth. This is what I believed about myself. And it's like, it doesn't have to be like this, everyone. Right. Sometimes things happen and you need food, and like you should just get food. Yes. That's the that's that's the tweet. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Yeah. It's just interesting the ways in which we spend so much of our time and energy focusing on the individuals as opposed to focusing on the collective and really coming together and saying, you know, what can we do to help? Because I don't necessarily need to know what your background is that led you to come through our doors. But I would like to know you as a person, not your circumstances. I want to know you as a person. I want to know your family. You know, we have people that come in that they've had a new baby or they've had a new addition to the family. Like we want to get to know people as people and not as and not as products of their circumstances.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Yeah. We Kate, we have some lawmakers who are maybe trying to limit how folks use their SNAP benefits. That's like one type of legislation that's coming up in 2026. But I'm sure that in your work you've seen uh other types.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

Our partnerships with local farms and gardens. Again, it goes back to not only the idea of choice and the idea of healthy food, as opposed to just, you know, giving out food for the sake of giving out food. We want to make sure that the food that people are able to access is the types of food that are the best and most nutritious and going to set them up for the best type of life that they can have. And we are very lucky in New Hampshire, especially on the seacoast of New Hampshire. We have so many incredible farms and gardens at our disposal, a lot of whom are very expensive. We have a lot of farms that we partner with that we have our gardening manager, Allie. I'll give her a shout out. She's incredible. Shout out, Allie. She came from Heron Pond Farm and Three Rivers Farm Alliance and had these relationships and was really able to go out and say, okay, we're gonna have a plot at X Farm that I go into once a week and grow and pull from, and we can put that food in the pantry. Or these farms that even say, okay, we have an overabundant crop of tomatoes that we weren't expecting. We can't sell all of it. Let's give some together. Or we have potatoes that have been sitting in the ground for too long, let's pull those and give them to gather. A lot of times this is food that, you know, not everyone can afford to shop local and shop organic. And most people have to get their produce from places, you know, that aren't as aren't as fresh or that are imported from other parts of the country. Um, and we also want to support local agriculture. So by us pulling excess produce from farms, that keeps them from being stressed and overwhelmed, needing to sell items. We also utilize a lot of our budget to purchase CSAs every season so we can put that money back into local agriculture. A big pillar at gather is food waste as well. Oh, yeah. Okay. Whenever I bring it up with people, people say, I get so frustrated at the amount of food that goes to waste. You know, and they may realize that a lot of food goes to waste in this country. It's 45% of food produced and manufactured in the United States winds up going to waste. And a lot of it is food that just with the general nature of manufacturing and streams from different wholesalers, other companies, that there's a lot of misordering, mispicks. We see often food manufacturers and wholesalers that we work with that the customer ordered a diff a different cut of beef or something, and they have to reject the entire order. And so that also puts it on the part of the truck driver to either find a place to donate it to or to just find a place to throw it out.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Oh my God. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

A lot of food waste from the not only retail and manufacturing, but from restaurants. We are very lucky in the Seacoast. Portsmouth has the highest restaurants per capita of any city in America outside of New York City. There are more seats in restaurants in Portsmouth than there are residents of Portsmouth.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

Whoa.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Holy smokes. You can imagine that that would produce a lot of food waste. So we partner with a lot of restaurants, caterers, wholesalers to try to recover food that they would otherwise have to waste. So that may be a restaurant has a menu change, they're going from their summer menu to their winter menu, and they have all the ingredients, they're perfectly fine, but they're not going to use them in their cooking. So we are lucky where we have a full-scale production kitchen where if everything's been stored at temp safely, we can repurpose it into meals. And we make pre-made meals that people can pick up every single day and take with them, try to make them nutritious, always have a starch and a veggie, and set them up like restaurant style. But when you think about those statistics, about the amount of food that goes to waste in this country, and then you think about the in the state of New Hampshire, the one in five children that are food insecure. And you think, why can't we take all of that perfectly good food and put it onto plates of families in need? Yeah. Right. That's what Gather and a lot of other wonderful organizations are trying to do and trying to bridge those gaps. The New Hampshire Food Bank also oversees their rescue recovery initiatives. So us and other agencies in the New Hampshire Food Bank will go to stores in the morning like Hannaford, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and recover food that they can't keep on the shelves, but it's still perfectly fine to eat. I think cheese is a great example. Like cheese and dairy products that we know last far longer than the expiration date, but a lot of times they have to toss them like weeks before the date because they just have new product coming in. Because we just purchase and purchase and purchase. It's it's really an issue.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

Name of the show, all the issues. How many people need food and how much food is being wasted on any given day? And how our lawmakers, how do they prioritize what power that they have, the power and ability that they have to make things better for people?

SPEAKER_00 35:09

Recently, the New Hampshire legislation was restricting people's ability to purchase food from farmers market with their EBT benefits. So SecoSeat Local and other similar organizations across the state who run local farmers markets were making it so that individuals could use their EBT snap card and purchase from purchase from their local farmers market with that. Um I don't know what the status of it right now.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

Wait, rewind. You're telling me. Wait, I have to make sure that I understood what you just said. You're telling me the farmers markets have sort of prioritized that folks are able to use their SNAP benefits to buy things at the farmers markets. That makes sense to me, I'm following. But that our state lawmakers are restricting that ability to do that.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

It was in flux at the state legislature if people were able to do that, which is detrimental to local ag because a lot of people can't afford to shop at the farmer's market once a week because it's incredibly expensive. But also it's detrimental to families who would love to be able to purchase this fresh local produce, but can't because they have limited amount of spending on food.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

I like literally can't why why would they do that? Like that doesn't make any sense. Why would they not if anything? Now call me uh a radical, I guess. But if anything, it feels like they should be incentivizing them to support local farms and communities. What you would think you would think. What's that? Get bananas out there. Literally, they won't get bananas out there. Can I buy them? Why?

SPEAKER_00 36:51

It's a similar cut at the federal level as well. The there's a program that pairs local schools with local farmers from the USDA to be able to give schools the purchasing power to purchase produce from their local farmers and put it on the plates of school children in need. That money was cut completely earlier this year. And with the kind of mentality of, well, do we need to be spending these federal dollars on food that we don't technically need? It's more of a luxury as opposed to an essential.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

I feel like I'm in the bizarro world.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

What is I know this is what this is the bad place? This is the bad place. And knowing and knowing so many people that are trying to make it as farmers for a lot of local farms, the only funding that they were getting from their federal or state government was from these types of programs. And so that being cut makes it so that they need to really amp up their sales in their farm stores or their CSA shares. Kate, this is a mess. This is very upsetting.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

I am very upset by this.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

And we haven't even gotten to school meals yet.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

Oh my God. Let's all right, let's go there. Let's go to school meals because I've talked about this on a few episodes. A policy that has been proven time and time again to be extremely effective for students is to feed them, to make sure that they are fed, to give them free access to school lunch and school breakfast. Like that is just if you do that, students are better off. So, Kate, how is New Hampshire doing when it comes to feeding the kids?

SPEAKER_00 38:32

Well, New Hampshire, we're smack dab in the middle of Vermont, Maine, and Massachusetts, which all have universal school lunch and breakfast. Kate, they all do? All of them? They all do.

SPEAKER_01 38:46

They're saying they want to feed the kids in the other states. They are feeding the kids in the other states. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

There have been several bills in the past few legislative periods to try to not even to make it so that New Hampshire has universal school lunch and breakfast, but to make it so that students can have breakfast after the bell. And the importance of the breakfast after the bell program is that students who are not able to get to school on time can still have access to breakfast. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I say that. I often skip breakfast, but I'm an adult woman and I can make my own decisions. I'm sorry. That's true. But still, breakfasts. But I am not an adolescent growing child who needs to focus in school. And has to take an algebra test. And has to take an algebra test. But the other important thing about the breakfast after the bell is that a lot of kids are afraid to go to school early to get breakfast because in New Hampshire, breakfast isn't universal. So if you're one of the kids that goes to the cafeteria to get your free breakfast, you're easily identified as a one-I'm one of the poor kids. So having breakfast after the bell, if kids can just go and get a quick grab and go breakfast that they can eat, it reduces that stigma and it makes sure make sure that they're able to start off the day right. In addition to lunch, which, you know, I don't think any child should have to go without lunch. And if you're already in a household that struggles to be able to afford food, sometimes you don't even know if you're going to be able to have dinner on the table. So why wouldn't your school be able to provide you with lunch?

SPEAKER_01 40:22

The stigma of picking up breakfast being identified as like, oh, if you're getting breakfast, then like you're one of those kids. Like that is such a real thing that happens, especially for preteens and teens. Like that is so challenging already. Again, shame and stigma is so real. And now we're putting that on children having to address that.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

We see so through our Meals for Kids program, which is where we provide the ingredients for meals during school breaks. So during summer break, winter break, spring break, we see a lot of kids that kind of are the providers for their family.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:05

We go to some places in which we strategically have the market so that it is there right after the kids get off the bus, they go and do their shopping and go back inside. And sometimes there might not be a parent home because if you're like me and you grew up with parents that work in the service industry and they work nights. And so by the time they're home, you may already be in bed or your parents are already stressed out because if you're already in an environment that is economically stressful, that may mean that your environment is already stressful. Not always necessarily the case, but it does make it harder than if you're with a parent that works from home or has a flexible schedule and is able to be more present, then yeah, it's easy for it's easier for you to be able to fill out those forms. We see a lot of kids that, you know, once you have to take on that responsibility, you know, maybe you're maybe your biological parent is not your main uh guardian. Maybe you're raised by your grandparents or an older sibling. Yeah, there's so many fac there are so many factors where those things can fall through the cracks because you have other things to worry about and you're just a kid. That also puts a strain on nonprofits to pick up the slack.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

The pressure on nonprofits is so real because if this was covered by the federal government, which has a tremendous amount of money, there's a lot of money that it spends on other things. I've heard that. I've heard that. I've heard they've spent things, spent money on things. Or the state government, which has made choices this year to cut revenues, the state has less money. But if those two entities were to prioritize making sure that children could eat at school, it wouldn't fall on these nonprofits. And I'm thinking of, you know, I had like a mini episode, a mini sode about SNAP benefits and referenced that one of these state lawmakers in the committee when they were approving the contract, the emergency contract with the Department of Health and Human Services. She's like, well, if everyone just opened their wallets, if everyone just gave more. It's like that's not how any of this works. It shouldn't be how it works. It shouldn't be a good thing. It shouldn't be like that, because that's what your job is.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

Our executive director testified in Concord two years ago for the Hunger Free New Hampshire Act and was talking about the stress and burden that it was placing on our staff and volunteers, given the increase in need. And the Hunger Free New Hampshire Act, if you haven't heard about it, was a an act a comprehensive bill to help assist programming for children, including uh school lunch and breakfast in the state of New Hampshire and increasing uh SNAP benefits spending with Ann Hayes, our executive director, and and the president of the New Hampshire Food Bank and uh folks from the New Hampshire Hunger Solutions, all testifying. We still had legislators that were saying that, well, they don't really feel like hunger is an issue in New Hampshire, despite hearing testimony to say the contrary. We hear from people on a daily basis how hard it is for them to be able to make these types of decisions. And people that don't hear that every day choose to not pay attention or believe it. And then that in turn manifests into what we see at the state and federal level.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

The policy decisions they make and choose not to make intentionally. So, Kate, it's Tuesday of Thanksgiving week, the week of like abundance and so much food. What should people be doing? They're listening to this episode, they are brining their turkey. What should they, or if they don't eat meat, making their potatoes, I assume. What can they do? Like what would be helpful?

SPEAKER_00 44:35

I think my kind of cynical response to that is to pay attention and give back any week that is not this week. This month. So my my role is I do food drives, fundraisers, events, overseeing our Thanksgiving distribution. We see a really wonderful, tremendous amount of support around this time of year.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 44:56

And especially on November 1st, when people knew that Snap Benefits were frozen, we had an additional wave of support from the community, which was wonderful to see. By the time January comes along, that kind of drops off. So I usually encourage people to take this time to remember yes, there are people that are not able to have a Thanksgiving meal on the table that, but they also aren't able to have a meal on the table or a healthy meal on the table for their family, most other days of the year as well. And that really increases in the colder months. You know, we're gonna have a, you know, we're having a a bit of a a bit of a hot November, hotter than usual. So gas bills may not be as high as they have historically. But by the time January comes along, you know, if you're used to only paying, you know, 100 bucks to heat your house, and then by the time January, February, March comes along, that's you're paying like $400. That, you know, for a lot of people, money's gonna have to be cut back elsewhere. So this time of year, I I try to remind people to remember us other times of year as well.

SPEAKER_01 46:04

We'll re-up this episode in January and in June and other times of the year too. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

And you know, we talk about circumstances. So who knows when we're gonna see an increase. And that's the kind of nature of our work. We didn't anticipate that there was gonna be a government shutdown. We didn't anticipate that there was gonna be a a snap freeze. But now I get a lot of questions of, oh, well, now that New Hampshire residents are receiving their snap benefits, does that mean that you don't need as much help? And the answer is no, because we've been seeing an increase in need for years. We had a record high in the pantry two weeks ago. We had 188 people in one day.

SPEAKER_01 46:38

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 46:38

Um, when I started gather, we are seeing like 40 to 50 people a day. And the past year our average has been about 80 to 90.

SPEAKER_01 46:45

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 46:46

And yes, that increase may have been the result of snap freeze and and government shutdown, but we've been seeing an a steady increase for years because of the cost of food and the cost of living in this area and in this state. So this is my very long-winded way of saying that I love Thanksgiving. I love and appreciate this time of year. I think it's really important for people to have these reflective moments. But I think my one hope is that people take the energy that we've seen in this past month, this kind of community collective that we've seen, people stepping up and recognizing and thinking about their neighbors. And I would like to see people funnel that into all different times of the year. Keep in tune, look out for each other, all different times of year.

SPEAKER_01 47:27

So, listener, if you're like, wait, I was gonna do something this week, still do that thing this week.

SPEAKER_00 47:32

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 47:32

And it's a yes end. Yes to that and circle back in December and January and February and so forth. That's the message I'm receiving.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

And I also encourage people to visit the New Hampshire Hunger Solutions website and subscribe to their newsletter because they are an incredible organization that are always keeping on top of what legislation is being passed at the state level to increase food access or to or to decrease food access. They've been on top of these snap cuts for years and years. Um, New Hampshire Hunger Solutions is a great place for you to keep your finger on the pulse of that kind of legislation.

SPEAKER_01 48:05

I will have that link in the show notes. They have uh incredible information constantly that they send out about what's going on in the state house. Like they are great at keeping folks up to date on that.

SPEAKER_00 48:14

I just wish that everyone could spend a day in our pantry and really get to know the people that we serve and understand that there's all walks of life that can be vulnerable at any point. And that does not mean that they do not deserve access to food and other essential things.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

No matter what you have done or not done, you still deserve food. Yes. Real controversial in this episode. Sorry, everyone.

SPEAKER_00 48:42

People are gonna get a little bit mad at us.

SPEAKER_01 48:44

But next I'm gonna tell people that they need water. Thank you for listening to New Hampshire Has Issues. If you're listening now, it's after the music, and that means that you were hoping for something funny. Oh my god, I don't have anything funny, but if you like the show, I would love if you would leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen. And maybe next time, when you stick it out to the end, I'll have some hilarious joke at the end, just for you.