Lois R. Shea

The Exeter Farmers Market, now run by Seacoast Eat Local, had a successful 2022 season. (Photo courtesy of Seacoast Eat Local.)

Legal Food Hub helps farms and food businesses thrive

Conservation Law Foundation’s Legal Food Hub connects farmers, food entrepreneurs, and food-related organizations with pro bono legal services to help start, grow, and operate their businesses.

Traci Fowler, the Charitable Foundation’s director of behavioral health, co-chairs the Budget Task Force of the Governor’s Commission on Alcohol and Other Drugs and is a member of New Hampshire’s Opioid Abatement Commission and Children’s System of Care Advisory Council. (Photo by Cheryl Senter.)

Reason to hope

Traci Fowler, the Charitable Foundation’s director of behavioral health, on the current substance use crisis, why an integrated approach to addressing mental health and substance use makes sense, and promising practices that offer reason for hope.

Photo by Mara Hoplamazian, courtesy of NHPR.

Truly local foods

The Abenaki Seeds Project is producing flint corn for cornmeal, Abenaki rose corn, skunk pole beans, true red cranberry beans and crookneck squash. The food is being shared through the Abenaki Helping Abenaki food pantry.

Waypoint staff and community members celebrate Waypoint’s new emergency overnight shelter in Manchester at an event in October. (Courtesy photo.)

New services for young people experiencing homelessness

Waypoint estimates that as many as 14,000 people between the ages of 12 and 24 experience homelessness in New Hampshire in a year’s time. Waypoint is expanding services for young people experiencing homelessness in New Hampshire, with new resource centers in Rochester and Concord and an expansion to provide emergency overnight shelter in Manchester.

Raude Raychel waves the Indonesian flag at the 2022 Somersworth Indonesian Festival. (Photo by Cheryl Senter.)

This benefits the whole community

The nonprofit Indonesia Community Connect is working to create the country’s only Little Indonesia district in Somersworth — drawing business and tourism, while driving community strength and connection.

Hershey Hirschkop, executive director of Seacoast Outright, an organization which supports, provides services and advocates for LGBTQ+ kids and their families and offers community training and education. (Photo by Cheryl Senter.)

A champion for LGBTQ+ youth

Hershey Hirschkop is executive director of Seacoast Outright, which supports, provides services and advocates for LGBTQ+ kids and their families and offers community training and education. Outright also organizes Portsmouth Pride, which saw a record turnout in 2022.

Poll workers are sworn in for duty on Election Day in Milford. (Photo by Cheryl Senter.)

Tending to our civic health

“For everything else to work, the civic health of our communities needs to be robust.”
Read about how people and nonprofits around the state — from Milford election workers to Seacoast teenagers and outreach educators in Manchester and Nashua — are tending to our civic health and nurturing democracy.