This story is part of a series on NHPR's Morning Edition in which we explore how people are addressing food insecurity in New Hampshire. Tell us your thoughts on local food access at voices@nhpr.org.
It’s a bright Saturday afternoon, and people are lined up inside the fire station on main street in Errol. For just a few hours every month, the station turns into the rural town’s food pantry.
Coos County has the highest food insecurity rates in the state. Thirteen percent of the people in the area struggle to get enough food consistently. The Errol food pantry is trying to address that need.
Sara Dionne, the pantry coordinator, checks clients in as they fill boxes with food. She gives cooking tips and information on food products as clients examine their choices. The pantry offers kitchen staples, meat, baked goods and produce. Today the cherries were a favorite among clients
Dionne grew up in Errol, and she knows most people that come into the pantry. She also knows the challenges they face getting groceries. For many people in town, the nearest grocery store is 30 minutes to an hour away.
“For some people, they can't travel, they can't drive. Their family is not here to help them,” said Dionne. “And it's really hard to buy good quality food up here.”
Dale Bedard of Berlin doesn’t have a car, so she borrowed her cousin’s and drove a few other people without transportation up to the pantry. She says high food prices are her main concern, so the 45 minute trip up to Errol is worth it.
“I'm glad that this exists for the people who need it,” said Bedard. “And food stamps don't hack it.”
Since the pandemic, food prices have risen more than other costs with inflation. Bedard takes care of three other people in her home, and she says trying to make food stretch in her house is stressful.
“For about a week we lived on rice and macaroni. You get a big bag of rice – oh, and oatmeal,” Bedard said. “And I told the people that lives with me, ‘I'm sorry.’”
Kathy Knight of Milan gets most of her food from the pantry, which she also shares with her great-niece. Her grocery route depends on whether the roads are safe enough to travel on.
“Where I live, we have to maintain the road ourselves. So there's times where if you get a storm, you can't get out to get groceries,” said Knight. “So I try to stock up on canned goods and things like that so if I can't get out.”
It’s necessary to be resourceful when living in the North Country, says Christy Langlois from the New Hampshire Food Bank. She’s from Berlin and oversees the organization’s work in the region. She started the pantry with Errol’s former Fire Chief Bradley Eldridge just four years ago, knowing the financial challenges many people face here.
“They may not have a career that pays as much as maybe the southern part of the state,” said Lanlois. “They have to extend more of their salary towards heating costs. I mean we have a lot more cold days up here than in the southern part of the state. So their money is spread thinner for longer.”
The number of people the pantry serves has increased over the years as word got around. But the challenges that come with bad weather and long distances also affect the food bank when supplying food to northern pantries.
“The model that we currently have at the New Hampshire Food Bank is that we have one warehouse which is located in Manchester, which is two and a half hours away, which presents its own set of problems,” said Langlois.
That distance makes food bank delivery trips from Manchester costly and time-sensitive. And if a pantry makes the trip to the warehouse and back without a refrigerated truck, the food could go bad.
The food bank is hoping to make it easier for northern pantries to access food supplies by opening a new warehouse in Berlin this fall.
In the meantime, the Errol pantry continues to serve residents who in turn help their neighbors. Most of the people here aren’t only getting food for themselves. Dale Bedard gets meat from the pantry that she cooks into stews for her father-in-law, Pete Cote. And he, in turn, shares those meals with others.
“I have a friend down the road, a couple friends down the road, that don't have no cars or stuff like that. And I bring some over to them and stuff like that,” said Cote. “We pass it around. We have to.”
The food Cote and others bring home today will have to tide them over until the next month when the Errol pantry opens again.
