Hunger is not always easy to see on the Seacoast. Take Kittery, for instance. On a typical weekday, dozens of Seacoast residents can be found shopping for upscale groceries along the little stretch of Route 1 known as Gourmet Mile. Shoppers at Golden Harvest fill their baskets with sweet Bing cherries and lush bunches of basil. Next door at Beach Pea Baking Company, crusty, fragrant loaves of ciabatta are flying off the shelves, and at Carl's Meat Market, thick slabs of richly marbled prime sirloin are being packaged for the grill. Across the street Terra Cotta Pasta offers fresh-made pasta by the pound, and Sue's Seafood next door traffics in fresh Gulf of Maine fish. Just up the road Enoteca Italiana displays sumptuous cured Italian meats, imported extra virgin olive oil and 12 year aged balsamic vinegar.

Meanwhile, according to U.S. Census reports, 200,000 people in Maine and New Hampshire are living below the poverty level, and of those, 65,000 cannot afford to buy food. Fortunately, there are people working to change that in ways large and small.

One of the biggest efforts comes from the local restaurant community. On Tuesday, June 21 at the 11th annual Taste of the Nation gala, 50 chefs and restaurateurs banded together with members of Share Our Strength Seacoast to raise an estimated $52,000 to fight hunger. Thanks to the generous support of corporate sponsors and volunteers, 100 percent of the proceeds from the purchase of 500 tickets will go directly to fight hunger: 20 percent of the proceeds will be funneled to the national chapter of Share Our Strength for national and international distribution, while the remaining 80 percent is distributed to six hunger fighting organizations and advocacy groups in Southern Maine and New Hampshire. Local grant recipients will each receive a little more than $10,000 from the event, and state recipients will receive about $5,000.

Although many local organizations work to combat hunger, Share Our Strength Seacoast, of which I've been a member for three years, strives to fund organizations that directly fight the root causes of hunger. Here are some of their stories.

On the corner of U.S. Route 103 and Old Post Road in Kittery, about half a mile from Gourmet Mile, sits Footprints Food Pantry. Those driving by are not likely to notice the unobtrusive tan building, with its plain, garage-like dimensions and covered windows. But inside, an all-volunteer staff is busy filling grocery bags with emergency food supplies for residents of Kittery, Kittery Point and Eliot.

In 2001, Barbara Fernald came out of retirement to volunteer as executive director of the organization, which was founded in 1992 by the town of Kittery. Each Wednesday, from 10 a.m to 1 p.m, the publicly owned, board-governed facility feeds an average of 96 individuals who, for any number of reasons, have found themselves unable to afford food.

When they arrive, clients enter a waiting room where they are greeted by Barbara, her husband Roland Fernald (who serves on the board), or a friendly volunteer. After being quickly signed in (or registered, if this is a first visit), clients are handed a grocery checklist. The list offers a total of 19 selections. Clients check off their desired items-macaroni and cheese, canned vegetables, tuna, crackers, ramen noodles, dry milk, coffee-and their order is filled with a week's worth of food, using strict quantity guidelines depending on whether it's for an individual or a family. A specials board lists weekly selections of eggs, meats and cheeses, and limited amounts of personal hygiene products such as toothpaste, soap and laundry detergent are available as well.

This is no Gourmet Mile. This is where people turn when the worst-case scenario becomes a reality. A couple with young children suffers joint layoffs weeks before the birth of another child. A young man barely breaking even on minimum wage receives notice of a rent increase.

"We're here to get them through," says Barbara, "until the next paycheck." Or until the warmer weather arrives and the heat bill no longer trumps the food bill.

The Fernalds have seen an increase in clientele with each passing year, sometimes seeing former clients who had achieved self-sufficiency but then suffer an unexpected medical bill or an astronomical heating bill that once again leaves them unable to buy groceries. In 2004, Footprints provided 5,000 boxes of food to 153 individuals and families. The bitter winter months are always busier, particularly the holiday season, but the Fernalds report a steady clientele throughout the year.

Footprints derives support from a number of sources, including the annual Postal Food Drive (over 10,000 pounds were delivered in May) and from The Good Shepherd Food Bank (a food distribution warehouse that delivers food to pantries and shelters but is not open to the public), in Auburn, Maine. Smaller food drives sponsored by the Boy Scouts and by Curves Fitness Centers sustain the facility when supplies run low after the critical holiday season, and further supplements come in the form of private and corporate grants, government surplus foods, and day-old bakery items from Shaw's Supermarkets and Panera Bread.

The largest grant that the pantry receives, and one they depend upon for their survival, is the SOS Seacoast grant. "(Taste of the Nation) is it," says Barbara. "If we didn't get that check, we'd be in trouble." Fernald lists the hidden expenses-rent, electricity, heat-that the money helps pay for, as well as the myriad projects that ticket proceeds have funded over the years, including the replacement of an absolutely essential walk-in freezer that gave out three years ago and the purchase of the van Roland uses to pick up the bakery items. Last year, the pantry used the $9,768.68 check it received from Taste of the Nation to build a desperately needed insulated storeroom to protect canned and bottled goods during the bitter winter months.

An hour north, in Alfred, Maine, another food pantry is also busy providing emergency food supplies, but at this facility, the assistance doesn't end there. Founded in 1979, York County Shelter is a multi-faceted organization that, in addition to operating a food pantry, also provides emergency and transitional housing, substance abuse counseling, mental health services, medical services, vocational training, and a healthy habits wellness center. Many of the services are housed in original Shaker buildings-the property was a Shaker village in the early 1900s and has retained the aura of tidiness and efficiency balanced with communal warmth and serenity that is common to Shaker properties. The Bakery at Notre Dame, a retail bakery on site, is staffed by shelter clients, as is a woodworking shop and an organic community farm (at another location). On Friday nights, the public is invited to attend the Mama Mia pasta supper and dine in the sturdy low-beamed living room of one of the old Shaker buildings.

Joan Sylvester has been director of food services for York County Shelter for four years and has witnessed the transformation of countless clients. "Everyone who comes to the shelter is required to work," says Sylvester, either in the food pantry, at the bakery, at the wood shop, or on the farm. This way, she says, "not only are they given the opportunity to give back, but they receive an education and some formal vocational training as well."

Unlike most food pantries, there are no eligibility requirements at the shelter, and visits are not limited to a certain number per month. No one is ever turned down, says Sylvester. "We don't feel people should have to go through the indignity of having to prove they can't afford food," she says. The pantry is open 365 days a year.

In addition to the revenue that York County Shelter generates from The Bakery at Notre Dame and from its other retail operations, the facility receives funding from government, corporate and individual grants, individual donors, special fundraisers and the United Way. Oftentimes, says Sylvester, a government grant will come with a restriction that stipulates it be used on a specific project or in a specific capacity. One grant, for instance, is available specifically to fund the mental health clinic, says Sylvester. The Taste of the Nation check is funneled directly to the food pantry and in 2004 provided 27,754 boxes of food to 9,252 individuals. That number, says Sylvester, represents a 100 percent increase since 2002.

Back in New Hampshire, in the basement of Dover's Strafford County municipal building, Dick Hayes has just passed through a metal detector on his way to work. Hayes is used to the process. He's been the director of Strafford County Community Action Committee (SCCAC) for 33 years, and has had to pass through metal detectors for a couple of years now. Strafford County residents must also pass through the metal detector when they come to his office seeking emergency food, shelter and fuel assistance, and he'll be happy when an imminent move is complete and his clients no longer have to endure the procedure. "It's hard enough to be behind the eightball and you have to ask for help," he says.

Like York County Shelters, SCCAC also provides long-term solutions-in the form of occupational skills training, Head Start programs and home improvement services, to name just a few. One of the signature programs of the organization is Meals on Wheels. Every weekday, a fleet of three drivers loads up 100 hot meals for delivery to frail, handicapped and homebound elderly persons. "These are people who are one step away from being institutionalized," says Hayes. Many of them are completely isolated and the driver is the only human they will see for weeks, he says.

SCCAC is largely government funded but also derives funds from corporate and private grants, special fundraisers and the United Way. Money from SOS Seacoast, says Hayes, is set aside specifically to fund Meals on Wheels. In 2004, the $9,768.68 check from Taste of the Nation provided 30,000 meals for the Meals on Wheels program.

Rockingham Community Action (RCA) in Portsmouth also helps to help feed the hungry, but in a slightly different way than the other grant recipients: through the Breastfeeding Connection at the WIC office in Exeter.

Back in 1972, the federal government created the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). The program was created during a time of growing public concern about malnutrition among low-income women and their children. The operation of WIC programs was farmed out to government funded community action programs such as RCA.

Each week, WIC clinics are held in church halls, community centers and schools throughout Rockingham County. At the clinics, low-income mothers receive medical and nutritional counseling and are given vouchers to area grocery stores and farmers markets. The vouchers allow the purchase of pre-approved, nutritionally sound foods, including fresh fruits and vegetables. Included in the WIC program is the Breastfeeding Connection.

RCA executive director Karen Moyer explains that "increasing the number of pregnant women who choose to breastfeed their infants not only improves the health and IQ levels of infants and enhances mother to infant bonding," but it also saves enough money in infant formula expenses to allow two additional women and children to be served by the WIC program.

At the clinics, Moyers and her staff of breastfeeding peer counselors, nutritionists and nurses provide one-on-one support to nursing mothers. After the women are guided through the clinic, follow-up house calls are made if necessary, and breast pumps are loaned out free of charge.

Moyers says that Taste of the Nation funds "have been used and will continue to be used to hire and train breastfeeding peer counselors and to partially support our board-certified lactation consultant and to provide the free loan of electrical breast pumps and other peripheral supplies that enable breastfeeding moms to continue breastfeeding while returning to work or school."

state grant recipients

On a day in late May, farm manager Eero Ruuttila surveys Nesenkeag Cooperative Farm with just a touch of dismay. Minuscule stalks of green garlic-scallions fragrance the air, and tiny green tips of micro greens have begun to push up through the fertile land along the Merrimack River. The farm is already beginning to look lush to the casual observer, with neatly tilled rows stretching over the fields and a tractor moving off in the distance. But Ruuttila says he has never witnessed such a frigid start to the planting season. Those minuscule stalks and tiny sprouts should be a week away from harvest. Instead, they are three weeks behind.

Like any farmer, Ruuttila is at the mercy of the elements, but it is not just his own survival that has him concerned. Each year, in addition to selling wholesale crops to those upscale Boston restaurants like Mistral and Rialto with exquisitely grown organic micro greens and exotic baby vegetables, he also plants an entire crop of vegetables for the New Hampshire Food Bank, and the food bank then distributes the vegetables to food pantries and shelters throughout the greater Manchester area.

Fresh vegetables are a hot commodity for any food bank. The majority of foods that end up filling the shelves at these facilities are easy-to-store, easy-to-prepare processed items like pasta, canned vegetables and macaroni and cheese. Ruuttila understands the need for convenience, but he tries to strike a balance. "They'd be happy to have all tomatoes," he says, "but the idea is toward nutrition." To that end, he makes sure to include a healthy dose of leafy greens and root vegetables along with the much-coveted tomatoes.

It's been 25 years since Ruuttila took over as manager of the privately owned farm. With absolutely no prior hands-on farming experience, and with a strong helping hand from wife Liana, Ruuttila has worked to make the farm a success and is now considered a leading expert on organic farming. He employs a crew of immigrant Cambodian farmers who provide valuable farming expertise when the farm is in full swing, and at the peak of the season their straw hats can be seen dotting the landscape as they work the fields.

Ruuttila's expertise is now in high demand, and in the off-season he's able to supplement precarious farm revenue by holding educational workshops for young farmers eager to learn the ways of organic farming. Coupled with the 70-90 hours he puts in on the farm for most of the year, this leaves little time for writing grants. These days, says Ruuttila, the check he receives from SOS Seacoast is about the only grant he has coming in. Without it, says Ruuttila, it would not be possible for him to grow produce for the food bank. In 2004, Ruuttila used the Taste of the Nation funds to grow 3,000 pounds of produce specifically for delivery to the New Hampshire Food Bank.

The Children's Alliance of New Hampshire, in Concord, has been working to fight hunger in a less tangible but no less significant context. Since its founding in 1992, the Children's Alliance has been working to make changes in policies in an effort to improve the health and well being of New Hampshire's children. Children's Alliance program associate Kelly Laflamme is one of only six employees responsible for the advocacy work. In a nutshell, Laflamme says, the Children's Alliance was founded in an effort to give voice to a population that otherwise wouldn't have one.

"Children don't vote," Laflamme says, "and they don't pay taxes." The result is that children's needs are not taken into consideration by lawmakers who are busy pandering to a larger, older demographic of taxpaying constituents. The proof, says Laflamme, is in the numbers. According to U.S. Census reports, 21,000 children are living below poverty level in New Hampshire. Children are powerless to change their situation, says Laflamme, and they need someone to protect them. A child living below the poverty level, says Laflamme, is less likely to receive adequate nutrition and is more likely to suffer from obesity and other poverty related diseases. In an effort to get lawmakers to take notice, it is necessary to illustrate that investing in healthy children now means a stronger tax-paying population in the future.

The organization's biggest success story occurred in 1999 with the creation of a network of over 200 pro-child organizations. Known as the New Hampshire Child Advocacy Network (NHCAN), it's designed to focus attention on the needs of children and to build support amongst government agencies, the business sector and the community. "Disregard the need for affordable medical care," reads literature for the program, "and a child with a painful ear infection cannot concentrate in school and may require emergency room care ... Ignore the need for quality, affordable early care and education, and children aren't ready for school and are less likely to become skilled workers."

Laflamme says it is hard to put a dollar amount on the success of the Children's Alliance in fighting hunger, but she points to lobbying efforts by the alliance and by NHCAN that have resulted in increased funding for a home-based visiting nurse program that provides nutritional counseling and other services to at-risk mothers and infants, the state-wide adoption of a computerized intake assessment program that streamlines the application process for dozens of local, state and federal assistance programs, and increased state funding for health insurance for low-income children and pregnant women. The Children's Alliance allocates Taste of the Nation funds specifically to NHCAN, so that Laflamme and her hardworking colleagues can continue to work full time on behalf of children in New Hampshire.

where to go for help

Rockingham Community Action

7 Junkins Avenue

Portsmouth NH 03801

Karen Moyer

603-431-2911

www.rcaction.org

Strafford County Community Action

PO Box 160

Dover, NH 03820

Dick Hayes

603-749-1334

www.straffcap.org

Footprints Food Pantry

37 Old Post Road

Kittery, ME 04904

Barbara and Roland Fernald

207-439-4673

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York county Shelters

147 Shaker Hill Road

Alfred, ME 04002

Joan Sylvester or Wes Phinney

207-324-8811

207-324-1137

www.yorkcountyshelters.org

Nesenkeag Cooperative Farm

226 Charles Bancroft Highway

Litchfield, NH 03052

603-429-3163

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The Children's Alliance

2 Greenwood Avenue

Concord, NH 03301

603-225-2264

www.childrennh.org