We are proud to share that Amber Pittenger Tillson has been named Associate Director of Food Programs and will manage our market and warehouse teams. Amber will also continue her role as meal manager at the Community Meal, a role she has been in since 2022.
Having spent most of her career in the food security space, she’s turned a lifelong passion for feeding her neighbors into meaningful community impact. She more than 10 years of nonprofit management experience and expertise in program implementation and organizational operations. Over the past year, she has also been managing much of our data to track our progress toward a food secure region.
​"I'm excited to collaborate with our talented program team and to get to know all of the volunteers who make ONT's mission possible," Amber says.
If you'd like to reach Amber, email her at [email protected].
​

If you’ve visited the Community Meal on any given Wednesday over the past few years, you’ve likely run into Helen Nadeau. She is among the first to arrive for meal prep at noon and one of the last to leave after 6 p.m. She even takes home the laundry.
A retired Amesbury school secretary, Helen first volunteered at the Community Meal many years ago and supported ONT’s pandemic response by making phone calls to guests. Once the meal reopened for in‑person dining, she became a Wednesday fixture alongside a dedicated group of fellow volunteers.
One of the things she enjoys most, she says, is the community of people she serves with each week — whether they’re longtime regulars or brand‑new volunteers.
Amber, our meal manager, says of Helen: “She is one of those people who sees what needs to be done and just does it. When she’s out, things fall through the cracks!”
“She’s also an incredibly thoughtful person. Whenever someone is experiencing a hard life event, she’s quick to rally our meal crew around them. She’s central to shaping our meal volunteer culture!”
​Thank you, Helen, for all you do. If you know someone who would like to join our community of volunteers, send them to ourneighborstable.org/volunteer.

In 2025, we continued to expand our reach thanks the tools provided to us with the Salisbury market and Seacoast Regional Food Hub.
The rising cost of living, cuts to public support and increased access to services brought more people to our door, and we proved once again that we can meet that need.
Our impact in 2025 included:

• A 9 percent rise in guest visits to our markets in Amesbury and Salisbury, as well as our integrated COA markets in Salisbury, Groveland and Merrimac. The rise included a crisis in late October over the freezing of SNAP funds that saw a nearly 50 percent spike in demand.
• Our SNAP Advocate helped more than 160 families max out their SNAP dollars, despite a more complicated application process that added 20 minutes to each visit. In total, we secured more than $90,000 to these families' food budgets, money that is then spent at local grocery markets and farmstands.
• More than 3 million pounds of food moved through the Seacoast Regional Food Hub to 14 frontline food providers from Newbury to Lawrence. As a result, many of these providers grew their reach - in North Andover, People's Food Pantry tripled its food supply and hired its first paid staff member.

This work only happens with the help of more than 600 active volunteers and hundreds of donors from across our region. Rising costs mean that this year we will need to continue to grow our impact, and your support is needed more than ever. Join our community!

We are proud to announce that our next Chairman of our Board of Directors will be Patricia Levitt, of Newburyport, beginning Jan. 1, 2026.
Pat is best known for her 29 years of service to the Newburyport School District as a teacher. In 2020 she received the Edward Molin Award for Teaching Excellence. She also served as President of the Newburyport Teachers' Association for several years.
Along with her board duties at ONT, she is a regular volunteer and takes an active role in the organization's community engagement efforts.
Bradford W. Rich of Haverhill will serve as Vice Chair, Julio Fuentes of Newburyport will serve as Treasurer, and Alease Hunt of Groveland will stay on as Secretary.
In the new year, we will say goodbye to outgoing board Chair Julie LaRuffa, as well as members Jim Brown and Bob Murciak. Thank you for all you've done for ONT! 
If you are interested in joining our board, e-mail [email protected] and we will forward you more information.
You can read profiles our board members at the link below.

My SNAP was supposed to arrive today. I just spent my last $40 to get my kids what they need. I don't know how I will feed them without it."
That was Becky, a guest at our Community Meal in early November.
When SNAP funds became threatened and then delayed earlier this month, demand on our grocery programs spiked. Visits began to rise two weeks before SNAP funds were due to be delayed,  and peaked the first full week of November as guests' bank accounts ran dry.
However, our guests knew where to turn and we had the resources to respond to an unprecedented surge.

• Our Neighbors' Table's Salisbury Market, opened in 2024, has improved access to southern communities.
• The Seacoast Regional Food Hub provides additional storage to keep our region supplied with plenty of food.
• Our SNAP Advocate is working overtime to process applications for those who need help.
• And our integrated markets at Councils on Aging across the region are meeting the needs of our most vulnerable neighbors.

Though SNAP funding is now flowing, many neighbors have seen their benefits cut or eliminated. Because heating assistance remains frozen, many are choosing between bills and groceries. More people living homeless and in dire situations are coming to us for help.The first step to building a community of support is awareness. Follow our Facebook and Instagram pages, and learn more about our Stable Table strategy here.

At Children's Healthcare (CHC) pediatrics offices, families who were once slipping through the holes of our food safety net are now getting the help they need.
This summer, ONT held trainings with CHC staff in Newburyport and Haverhill, where every family is given an assessment to measure their ability to afford enough food. Families struggling to keep their kids full are referred to ONT where they can access our markets and SNAP support.
The partnership is paying off. Through August, ONT distributed more than 5,500 pounds of food to families referred by CHC in 2025.
​Learn more about our strategy to end hunger - Our Neighbors' Table's innovative Stable Table™ model - at ourneighborstable.org/stabletable.

Is your business or employer looking to make a bigger impact? Already businesses from Amesbury, Newburyport, Salisbury, Rowley and Haverhill have signed on to sponsor our 2025 Annual Breakfast at the Black Swan Country Club on Wednesday, October 22, from 7:30-9 a.m.
Many businesses and organizations come back year after year because they find sponsorship builds connections to their community and gets them noticed along the way. Learn more about the benefits of sponsorship and join 300 of your neighbors in Georgetown next month! 

When we asked our community to get behind the Seacoast Regional Food Hub, we promised it could transform the food safety net for the entire Lower Merrimack Valley. Just a year into it's operations, and just a few months after the official ribbon cutting, the Hub is already making a transformational impact for frontline food providers across the region.
​The latest success story is the People's Food Pantry in North Andover. Every second and fourth Tuesday of the month, a team of more than 60 volunteers serves more than 400 people in just 3 1/2 hours. By signing on to receive Greater Boston Food Bank deliveries at the Food Hub in January, the pantry has tripled its food supply and added storage capacity inside the Hub. That's allowed the organization to hire its first-ever paid coordinator and dream even bigger.
Check out People's Food Pantry's story and more at our Partner Spotlight page.

he Seacoast Regional Food Hub is hard at work for our region, supplying more than 1.5 million pounds to 13 different frontline food providers across the Lower Merrimack Valley in the first half of the year
The Hub provides access to storage and distribution to more than 25 frontline food providers in 17 communities across our region. Learn more about the Hub here.

How do we know we making a difference in the lives of those we serve? Since June, we've surveyed 1,114 registered households with a two-question assessment to find out. The results showed that with the support of ONT programs, about 1 in 3 households have consistent, reliable access to the food they need. Still, another 1 in 5 told us they run out often, showing us there is still work to do.
The assessment, called Hunger Vital Signs™, is a nationally recognized tool created by Children's HealthWatch used to measure household-level food security. The assessment asks two questions with options to answer often true, sometimes true, or never true, They are:

• Within the past 3 months, I worried that I would run out of food before I had money to buy more.
• Within the past 3 months, the food I bought didn't last and I didn't have money to buy more.

We then break down the results by demographics - households with children, veterans, disabled and more - to measure and track our progress, allowing us to adjust our programs to meet the different needs of our neighbors.  The data collection is an important part our pioneering Stable Table™ strategy to build community-level food security. Learn more about the Stable Table here.

At local schools, as many as 1 in 3 kids face food insecurity. During Hunger Action Month in September, we want to help your kids learn more and inspire action. They might even win a prize along the way!
This past spring, Newburyport's Molin Upper Elementary School shared lessons on food security in the classrooms and raised more than $20,000 with a friendly competition that awarded the winning classroom with a movie day.
Let your school leaders and teachers know about this opportunity to rally around students in need and learn lifelong lessons in compassion and community.
​To learn more, contact Leanne at [email protected].

​Our 2025 Annual Breakfast is heading to Georgetown! Tickets and sponsorships are now available for our biggest fundraiser of the year. Join us at the Black Swan Country Club on Wednesday, October 22, from 8-9 a.m., where we will report out on our progress, discuss our current challenges and chart the path forward to a food secure region in one jam-packed hour. The event is ONT's biggest fundraiser of the year and brings together more than 300 local leaders, businesses and our supporters from across the region. 

When you sponsor our Annual Breakfast, you join more than 20 businesses from across our region who are share a commitment to our community. And it's a great time to get involved. Through August, all sponsorships will be MATCHED thanks to the generous support of our 2025 Presenting Sponsor, Institution for Savings! To learn more, contact Development Director Chris Nazareth at [email protected] or click the button below.

On Thursday, June 5, we reached a milestone five years in the making when we cut the ribbon on the Seacoast Regional Food Hub alongside our Lower Merrimack Valley Food Coalition partners and community of support. But the Hub is already making a huge impact on the region.
In the past year, dozens of local leaders, donors and community members toured the facility as it was renovated and came to life.
We now have 15 partners actively benefiting from the Hub’s distribution and storage, and the number continues to grow. New additions in 2025 include Lazarus House and Cor Unum Meal Center in Lawrence, as well as Dracut Food Pantry. 
In the first quarter of 2025, we moved 767,622 pounds of food through the Hub, putting us on a pace to distribute nearly 3 million pounds across our region this year. And we’re just getting started. Learn more about the Hub here.

​The number of people seeking our services continues a steady climb, with 14,726 visits served at our free markets through April - a 13 percent rise over the same period last year.
When we ask new registrants if they have run out of food with no money to buy more in the last 3 months, 80% say yes. Recent newcomers include a single mother of four working full-time, a young man who is out of work due to a car accident, and a retired woman on a fixed income who makes up for rising grocery costs by picking up a few extra items at ONT.
Our program team continues to step up and meet the needs of our guests by:

• Working with distributors like Amazon to supplement our food supply
• Adding a new refrigerator at our Community Meal to help us serve as many as 400 meals on a given night
• Securing more than $33,000 in new SNAP funds for our guests through April

We can't fulfill our mission without our community of support. The need will continue to rise. Join us to make sure every neighbor's table is full at ourneighborstable.org/how-you-can-help.

More and more people are giving back alongside their friends and neighbors — and having fun along the way. Friend Campaigns bring neighbors and networks together through events and gatherings, strengthening connections while supporting a meaningful cause.
Already this year, ONT has been supported by Mark Moccia’s Comedy  Night, a Cassette Culture rock concert, the Tennis for Our Tables event, the Wolfe Club Ball, Greg DeVenne and Jennifer Glendon’s event at Riptide Cafe (pictured) and more.
So far this year, ONT has benefited from events across the region, including Greg DeVenne and Jennifer Glendon’s event at Riptide Cafe (pictured). Local schools are stepping up through Dollar Drives, rallying their communities to help neighbors in need. Molin Upper Elementary School in Newburyport raised $15,000 through their drive, and more schools are joining the effort.
Interested in organizing a Friend Campaign to support our neighbors? Contact Community Engagement Coordinator Leanne Cavallaro at [email protected].

​At Our Neighbors’ Table, we are a small team that wants to make a big impact. Our newest team members are, pictured, from left, Hub Operations Supervisor Adam Letendre, Market Supervisor Bergen Daley and Development Director Chris Nazareth. If you are interested in joining us, visit ourneighborstable.org/job-opportunities.

In the first quarter of 2025, demand for our grocery programs rose 8% compared to 2024 as our funding and food supply face new threats from federal budget cuts. In April, the Greater Boston Food Bank, our largest food provider, lost $3.3 million of funding used to purchase healthy foods like chicken, milk, eggs and fresh produce. The funding pays farms to produce fresh food for frontline food programs and local schools. These are items we will need to purchase if we can't access a consistent supply.
The impact to our food supply is sustainable for now, but there are more dark clouds on the horizon. The prospect of rising grocery prices combined with further cuts to vital programs like the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) could set up a perfect storm for our food safety net.
Our community continues to step up in times of need, and this year local support is more important than ever. We can plan ahead when we know we can count on your donation each month. That's why one of the most impactful ways to support our work is with a recurring donation through our Breakfast Club. Together, we'll fill every table.

At Our Neighbors' Table, we believe everyone deserves great Easter and Passover memories. Together, we made that happen for hundreds of families across the region.
We asked our community to donate candy and 1,100 chocolate bunnies, and you came through. Atria Merrimack Place donated four cases of bunnies to put us over the top. Local school kids decorated Easter bags, and a crew of volunteers filled each one. Local girl scouts donated cases of cookies, adding another special holiday treat to the shelves. Our program team made sure whole chickens and stuffing were available to any family who needed one, and invited the Easter Bunny to the Community Meal.
​By week's end, we provided a holiday with dignity to 2,400 neighbors, one of our busiest weeks ever. It's amazing what happens when we come together for our neighbors. There are so many ways to help. Join us!

Our Neighbors' Table has a new way to get kids involved in giving back to their neighbors while showing some school pride along the way. Already, Amesbury Middle School and Newburyport's Molin Upper Elementary School in Newburyport are holding "Dollar Drives" to support local food security. The school that raises the most dollars gets to watch a movie at school! While money is the most effective way to support our mission because we can purchase food at lower prices, schools can also opt for a condiment drive. Get your school involved today! Contact Community Engagement Coordinator Leanne Cavallaro at [email protected] to learn more.

At long last, we are ready to officially open the Seacoast Regional Food Hub and get it to work for the 17 communities we serve. This vital resource could not come at a better time. With a huge warehouse and and three giant cold storage units, we can increase the food supply and our partners' ability to access it. Join us and our partners on Thursday, June 5, at 9 a.m. as we celebrate the incredible community support that made this vision a reality.

Our Neighbors' Table (ONT) currently has 31% more people relying on us than during the historic pandemic crisis of 2020. Federal, state and local investments are more vital than ever to help ONT and our partners keep pace with the rising use of our services. Feeding our region requires number of different of resources, each vital to sustaining the system. These are 5 areas we all must prioritize in 2025 to meet the growing needs in our region in 2025:

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is a crucial layer to our local food safety net, providing qualifying households additional money in their food budgets. Last year, Our Neighbors' Table helped secure more than $440,000 in SNAP funds through our contract as a Community Outreach Provider. Cuts to this program trickle down to the local economy, taking money away from retailers and forcing these households to rely on grocery and meal programs.

As federal spending is reduced, more reliance will build on state, municipal and private funding. State leaders are currently considering a cap on tax benefits for donations at $10,000, removing a key incentive for larger gifts. We must make sure that the budget package and policy changes don't do anything to discourage impactful private funding, including capping deductions for charitable contributions. Contact your state representative and ask them to stand up for our neighbors in need.