Winter Partners
added 01/19/11
Our Community Partner program offers an opportunity for Co-op shoppers to donate at the registers to a local non-profit each month. Read on to learn more about our January and February Community Partners of the month and how you can help!
Hanover Friends of the AT: January Community Partner
Folks talk on the Appalachian Trail. Hikers look out for one another—comparing notes and gear, telling Trail tales, providing weather warnings, and making recommendations about which communities are welcoming to hikers. (And giving warnings about which ones are not.)
Though the Trail runs right through the town of Hanover, New Hampshire, the town itself has a reputation along the Trail as a town much more open to college students than to ragamuffin hikers. So in 2009, area residents who love both the town and the Trail decided to get together and make a difference. The Hanover Friends of the Appalachian Trail was born.
“The group has two goals,” said Larry Litten, one of the organization’s founding volunteers, “to educate the public about the Appalachian Trail, and to make the town more accommodating to hikers.”
It’s already made a difference. Hanover now offers hikers hot showers, laundry facilities, and email access. The group also reblazed the route through town, and worked with the Co-op Food Stores to create a guide for hikers in the Hanover store to help hikers restock their supplies.
Litten said future long-term plans of the group include printing and distributing brochures and other information; bringing in speakers and workshop leaders to local schools; and developing an educational kiosk in downtown Hanover.
How You Can Help:
- Make a contribution when you shop at the Co-op during January.
- Contact the Hanover Friends of the Appalachian Trail at 603-643-1859 or email larry.litten@gmail.com to learn more about volunteer opportunities.
- Smile and say hello to a hiker.
February Community Partner: The Upper Valley Haven
When the Co-op Community Partner program began in February of 2002, the Upper Valley Haven in White River Junction, Vermont, was its inaugural Community Partner. The Haven has been the February partner ever since.
It’s a good and natural fit. Both the Co-op and Haven are long-time servants of the Upper Valley community. And the Hanover food store’s Haven Food Drive is held every February—a time of year when high heating bills put needy Upper Valley families in need of even more.
Haven History
The Upper Valley Haven was started in 1980 by five clergy members and parishioners of St. Paul’s and St. James’ Episcopal Churches in White River Junction and Woodstock, Vermont. A food shelf and clothing room was added in 1983. That year the food shelf served 327 families.
Educational programs were added in 1989. In May 2004, the Haven Family Shelter, Food Shelf, and Clothing Room moved into a new building on Hartford Avenue in White River Junction.
Haven Today
Today the Haven’s food shelf serves more than twice as many families every month than it served per year in the early 1980s. Haven outreach staff also report that an estimated 50 people a night are homeless in the Upper Valley—living in the woods, in tents, in their cars, or on the couches of family or friends.
Even larger numbers are those of the working poor, who despite holding jobs, struggle to provide the basic necessities of food, clothing, and shelter.
How You Can Help
- Make a donation to The Haven when you shop at any Co-op location during the month of February and support the Haven Food Drive in the Hanover store.
- Donate clean, functional, and seasonally appropriate clothing to The Haven at 713 Hartford Avenue, White River Junction, Vermont.
- Call The Upper Valley Haven at (802) 295-6500 to learn about volunteer opportunities, or visit www.uppervalleyhaven.org.
