On the second and fourth Tuesday every month, People’s Food Pantry provides groceries to more than 400 people in just 3½ hours at North Andover’s North Parish church.
“It’s nuts,” says Jen Cordes, the pantry’s unpaid co-coordinator for the past 8 years.
Since teaming up with Our Neighbors’ Table and the Seacoast Regional Food Hub in January, the pantry’s ability to serve the town’s estimated 4,000+ food insecure households has been transformed.
“Because we didn’t have storage, to make everything work we had to pick up and order less food,” she says. “Since signing on with the Hub and the Greater Boston Food Bank (GBFB), we get three times as much food.”
People’s Food Pantry volunteers now pick up a GBFB delivery at the Food Hub each Monday, borrowing ONT’s truck to transport it up the I-495. Food the Pantry can’t store goes on a designated rack inside the Food Hub’s warehouse. Through the first six months of 2025, the pantry accessed nearly 100,000 pounds of food from the Hub and supplemental food from Stop & Shop, local bakeries and farms.
People’s Food Pantry was founded the same year as ONT – 1992. But like so many of the 27 frontline food providers in the Lower Merrimack Valley Food Coalition, the pantry’s ability to grow has been limited by a lack of resources. A single room in the church serves as storage. Fresh foods must fit in two refrigerators and a single freezer. A team of more than 60 local volunteers and their vehicles make sure food gets in and out the door each week.
With the expanded food supply and more efficient transport, Jen and co-coordinator, Fran Rohr will now grow the program. This year the pantry hired its first employee to help manage day to day operations, so that the coordinators can.step back from operations, plan for the future, and seek funding to expand their impact in North Andover. “Everyone has a role to play.”
Learn more about People's Food Pantry at peoplesfoodpantry.org.

Neighbors in Need has provided food to the people of Greater Lawrence for more than 40 years, and today its demand is the highest in its history - an average of 1,600 households  per week. 
One of the larger members of the Lower Merrimack Valley Food Coalition, they have a staff of 13, including five full-timers, more than 400 volunteers and their own refrigerated box truck for deliveries. Despite these resources, they have faced many of the same challenges as the smaller providers, particularly with dry and cold storage.
At their headquarters inside an old mill building at 60 Island St. in Lawrence, boxes are stacked 10 high because shelving often takes up too much space. The commercial refrigerator is no different.
"We're serving more people than ever before," says Executive Director Lisa Smith. "Food goes out of our warehouse as fast as it comes in, but there are times we need added storage for Thanksgiving and other things. There's just not enough space to store it."
For them, the Seacoast Regional Food Hub is a game-changer. When they collected more than 600 turkeys to distribute over Thanksgiving, they stored the excess in the Hub's school-bus-side industrial freezer. Other staples were stored in their dedicated section of the warehouse.
The Hub has improved their ability to access their food supply as well. Last year the organization distributed more than 1 million pounds of food to 10 different locations across Lawrence, Methuen and Andover, including six mobile markets. By receiving their Greater Boston Food Bank deliveries at the Hub with pallets that are wheeled on and off, they have shaved 50 percent off their transportation time and vehicle wear and tear
Like every provider, Neighbors in Need has its own unique model to how they serve. They provide each family a bag of healthy and fresh food, including fresh produce, frozen protein and a bakery/dairy item, along with staples. Another cornerstone of their programs is diapers and infant formula for 700 children a month Just last year they distributed more than 200,000 diapers and 56,000 bottles of formula, as well as wipes and other items.
And as the need grows, Lisa hopes the Seacoast Regional Food Hub will pay even more dividends.
"We hope to connect on more, like capturing surplus food and additional produce," she says. "We're looking forward to all of it."
Without more community support, ONT cannot continue to grow its reach. All of the region's providers are seeing record use of their services. Can you help us get the Hub funded so we can continue to scale our work and meet the growing demand?

Kristin Crockett has been the director of the Georgetown Council on Aging for just a year, but she already knows there is more need in her community than her organization can support. 
"I'm sure we're not reaching everyone," she said.
In the coming year, she hopes to change that.  Our Neighbors' Table currently supports Councils on Aging in Merrimac, Salisbury and Groveland with what we call integrated markets, providing the food these organizations need to provide a range of healthy offerings and keep up with rising demand. Kristin is working with ONT's program team to bring an integrated to Georgetown in the new year.
For now, the COA's focus is on Georgetown's senior population. The food pantry is open on the third Thursday of the month, however anyone who asks can come on demand and get what they need from Monday-Thursday between 8:30 am and 3 pm. 
Kristin supplements the pantry with regular Grab and Go meals that are picked up or delivered, and a Traveling Chef lunch each month. A van drives seniors to Our Neighbors' Table's Salisbury market 1-2 times per month as well.
But she is limited in what she can supply because her storage is limited. A small back room serves as dry storage. A commercial refrigerator and freezer allow her to provide some fresh foods like produce and meats. But after another pantry in town closed, Kristin knows that there are families in town that are now must travel to Newbury or Salisbury to get the food they need. 
That's why the Seacoast Regional Food Hub is a game-changer for more than 25 frontline food providers across the Lower Merrimack Valley. By partnering with Our Neighbors' Table and gaining access to the Hub's services, Georgetown will have the additional food supply and storage it needs to allow residents to get what they need in their community.
We are running out of time to fund the Hub. The capital campaign ends on December 31 and we are still short of our goal. If every community did their part to support this once-in-a-lifetime community asset, we could make sure Georgetown and every community across the Lower Merrimack Valley could feed their neighbors for years to come. Can you help get us over the top?

For Nourishing the North Shore (NNS), partnership is at the center of everything they do.
NNS is in its ninth year as a food access organization with a mission to ensure equal access to healthy, local food across North Shore communities, fostering community, connection, dignity, and self-reliance.
The organization was founded in 2015 by three North Shore residents who recognized the immediate issue of hunger faced by many in our community and specifically the void of access to healthy foods.
NNS carries out its work by bringing together a network of more than a dozen North Shore farms and a collection of food access agencies across 10 communities. 
Now led by Executive Director Tany Blasko, Food Access Program Manager Giuliana Cappucci and Food Access Coordinator Terri Unger and backed by a team of volunteers, the organization is on track to deliver over 70,000 pounds (280,000 servings) of fresh, local food. More than 12,000 pounds of that produce has been brought to Our Neighbors' Table for distribution this year.
In the coming months, NNS will focus on delivering holiday produce bags and hosting pop-up markets for hunger relief partners across the region. 
As the Seacoast Regional Food Hub becomes fully operational, NNS will utilize the Seacoast Regional Food Hub to store and streamline distribution of its produce to the members of the Lower Merrimack Valley Food Coalition!
"We are excited to use the Seacoast Regional Food Hub to efficiently distribute fresh produce to partners such as Our Neighbors’ Table, Newbury Food Pantry, and Among Friends in Newburyport," Tany says. "The Hub is a gamechanger for all of us."
Learn more about NNS's programs and impact here. And click the button below to learn more about how the Seacoast Regional Food Hub is about to transform the region's food safety net.

For more than 25 years, Bonnie Schultz has made her way to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Newburyport every week to make sure neighbors in need have access to a warm meal backed by a team of loyal help.
Called Among Friends, her program is part of a network of free lunches and dinners across Newburyport that ensure a healthy meal and social activity is available every day to anyone who needs it.
Using a small kitchen in the parish hall, Bonnie and a team of loyal volunteers serve dinner on Mondays and lunch on Tuesdays and dinner and Fridays every week, providing an average of more than 350 meals every week.
Like most of the region’s food providers, no one with Among Friends gets paid, including Bonnie. As the need has grown each year, every square inch of storage is used. Larger food donations were often not accepted, simply because there is no place to put it.
In the past two years, however, that has started to change. During the pandemic, the region’s food providers came together to form the Seacoast Food Providers, and started meeting monthly under the leadership of Our Neighbors’ Table and Executive Director Lyndsey Haight.
The partnerships inspired Bonnie to start fundraising and writing grants, and she secured $50,000 to update the hall’s 30-year-old kitchen. This past year, she created her first strategic plan.  
Out of those pandemic meetings also came the concept of the Seacoast Regional Food Hub in Salisbury, where local providers can now pick up their deliveries from the Greater Boston Food Bank and access additional storage. For Among Friends, it’s been a game-changer.
“We were having to use ONT’s van to go to Boston, and find cold storage at Shaw’s or other places,” she says. “Now we use the van to drive over the bridge to the Hub. It’s nice and easy for us. It’s so exciting.”
Among Friends is one of more than 25 food providers – from meal programs to pantries to markets – that will benefit from the infrastructure and efficiency provided by the Seacoast Regional Food Hub.
Imagine we could be the first region in the country to achieve universal food access for it’s neighbors. The last step toward that goal is community investment in this once-in-a-lifetime, pioneering project.
Can you help? Together we’ll fill every table.