It started out as a soup kitchen in 1983 with a couple dozen volunteers and support from local churches and friends. They served soup to 25 people in a church basement and as time passed and more people came, it was quickly discovered that the soup kitchen's offering was the only daily meal for some of its guests.

Today, 26 years later, The Community Kitchen has become a helpful hand to more than 12,000 hungry people in the Monadnock Region. Of the 952,700 meals provided last year, over 60% went  to children under the age of 19. We anticipate serving 1.2 million meals this year. The families seeking food assistance are not just the homeless.

Most are the working poor desperately trying to feed their children and many upper middle class parents who have recently suffered family upset through divorce, health issues or job loss. 

The children affected are our main concern. They are helpless to provide for themselves; yet these same children are our country's future. They need good nutrition and adequate food choices to properly grow and develop into healthy productive adults. These children need everyone's help.

The Community Kitchen is about people helping people. We, as human beings, are all on this journey together and we must look out for each other, lend a hand when someone needs one and work collectively toward common goals that bind us together as one.