NASHUA, NH – A COVID-inspired program to bring healthy food to people where they live is still going strong five years later, providing a vital service to city residents who don’t have ready access to fresh produce and fruit.
The year-round Pop-Up Pantries move outside April 14, where they’ll stay until October, operating five days a week to provide free vegetables and fruit to anyone who needs it.
The collaborative program by the Nashua Soup Kitchen and Shelter and United Way of Greater Nashua has served more than 40,000 people since the first one on April 7, 2020.
“It’s hard for people to cover all of their resources well when they live in a food desert,” Mike Apfelberg, president of the United Way of Greater Nashua, said Friday. The Pop-Up Pantries help supplement people’s food supply, particularly those who can’t easily get to an affordable food source or food pantry.
The program’s five locations – one for each day of the working week – are in areas of the city where the need is high, and access is difficult, Apfelberg said.
The Pop-Up Pantries began at the beginning of the pandemic, when Mike Reinke, at the time director of the Nashua Soup Kitchen and Shelter, got together with Apfelberg to find a way to reach people who couldn’t access food pantries, or even stores, because of lockdown. The soup kitchen had the resources, but not the volunteer power, to get the food out in the community. United Way had the volunteers, but not the food.
“It was a match made in heaven,” Apfelberg said.
The pair sat down with a map of the city and identified where the food pantries and supermarkets were. Then they looked for high-density, lower-income population areas that weren’t close to the pantries and stores – the city’s food deserts.
Once they decided where the Pop-Up Pantries would go, they were up and running. Since then, the program has operated nonstop, year-round, in basically the same areas.
The concept is simple. The pantries provide perishable food, mostly fresh vegetables and fruit, and people come and get it.
“It’s first come, first-served,” Apfelberg said. “When it’s gone, it’s gone.”
There are no requirements, papers to fill out, IDs to show, or anything else. The food is available to anyone who wants it. “Talk about low barrier, this is no barrier,” he said.
Food insecurity – the inability to provide adequate meals for yourself or your family on a consistent basis – is very real for people who lack the income, or transportation, to buy groceries. Apfelberg pointed out, for instance, that someone who receives SNAP benefits may not be able to use them, or find what they need, at a convenience store.
“Most convenience stores are not affordable food sources,” he said.
Someone who has to take the bus to do their grocery shopping will have difficulty transporting everything they need to provide healthy meals.
The Pop-Up Pantries are meant to supplement people’s food needs, not be the primary source, but the type of food supplied can be the hardest to access or afford for many people.
The food is provided by the Nashua Soup Kitchen and Shelter, as well as Regenerative Roots Association, a nonprofit that seeks to end food insecurity and strengthen the local food system.
The New Hampshire Food Bank, which helps supply the Nashua Soup Kitchen, has in the past month or so lost more than $1 million in funding because of recent federal cuts. That, and other national economic issues may pose challenges to the program, Apfelberg said.
“I haven’t seen that translate yet, but I have a feeling that between the probable inflationary pressures coming from the new tariffs, and the reductions to food resources that are being looked at as far as federal budgeting processes, there will be some challenges there,” he said.
Still, he’s optimistic about the program’s ability to continue its mission.
“We’re trying our best to make do,” he said. “I think it will be fine, but more challenging.”
One change coming to the program will help.
Pop-Up Pantries has relied on the Nashua Soup Kitchen since the program started.
“They have done some very heavy lifting to be the sole food supplier, for the most part in this program,” Apfelberg said. “That’s a lot.”
In a typical day, the program distributes seven to eight banana boxes full of food. A banana box is 18 inches long, 13 wide, and nine high – about 1.5 cubic feet.
“That’s 40 or so banana boxes full of food a week, times 50 weeks a year, times five years. It becomes just a whole lot of food,” he said. “And they’ve done an amazing job of supporting that.”
The program is now moving toward a wider community base. United Way of Greater Nashua is applying to become a New Hampshire Food Bank partner agency, which means it can get food directly from the food bank, rather than the soup kitchen. The organization will also be enlisting the help of other community agencies – food pantries and other nonprofits that also are food bank agencies.
“We’re trying to build a system where maybe one day a week, one agency becomes the partner,” while United Way will still provide the volunteers, who will get the food, bring it to the site, distribute it and collect the data that’s needed to report back to the food bank.
“I think in this environment, that’s an approach that will make it more sustainable,” he said.
As it is, he said, it’s a program that was created to be as sustainable as possible. It’s volunteer-driven, with a dedicated team, some who’ve been with it since it started five years ago. The resources it distributes are not as expensive as conventional food might be if it were bought at a grocery store. And it’s supported by the community, and moving to strengthen that support.
He said it’s also important that the program is stigma-free and allows anyone who wants food, regardless of who they are or their situation, to get it.
“You don’t have to tell us your income, you don’t have to tell us anything at all,” he said. “You just get what you need. And that’s all right.”
The outdoor Pop-up Pantries begin Wednesday, April 14, and run until Oct. 31, when they move back inside, generally in the same or a nearby location. They begin at 11 a.m. and last until around noon, whenever the food runs out. The schedule is:
- Monday: Harbor Care, 45 High St.
- Tuesday: Sullivan Terrace, 56 Tyler St.
- Wednesday: Lamprey Health Care, 22 Prospect St.
- Thursday: River Pines Mobile Home Park, 34 Birch Ridge Trail
- Friday: Crossway Christian Church, 33 Pine St.