A life’s work in fighting poverty

Elsy Cipriani is an economist who has made fighting poverty her life’s work.

She took the helm as executive director of the New Hampshire Food Bank in March. The Food Bank, a program of New Hampshire Catholic Charities, distributes about 17 million pounds of food to more than 400 food pantries and soup kitchens with the help of about 3,000 volunteers.

In New Hampshire, a state with one of the highest median incomes in the country, one in nine people (and one in seven children) experience food insecurity — meaning they do not know where their next meal is coming from.

Elsy’s family left Colombia for Ecuador to get away from violence. She met her husband, a Mainer, when he was studying in Ecuador. Elsy got an Master’s in Public Administration with a concentration in nonprofit management so she could “better serve communities.”

Elsy has worked in nonprofits from coast to coast — first with farmworkers in California who were being shorted on wages, eventually running emergency shelters in Boston. Along the way she “fell in love with New Hampshire,” and ran a program that helps moms and children experiencing homelessness.

During Elsy’s first week at the Food Bank, the organization was notified that federal funding cuts would gut its budget by almost $1 million through 2028. The Food Bank continues to fundraise to try to fill the gaps. Additional shifts — like tariffs, changes to SNAP eligibility and to Medicaid – have nonprofits bracing for increased demand.

Elsy is quick to praise the Food Bank team, whose work ethic and dedication are unwavering.

“We have to be extremely strategic,” Elsy said. “We don’t know what else might happen.”