Sunapee welfare department backs food pantry with Hannaford bag fundraiser
Sunapee asked shoppers to turn a $2.50 Hannaford bag into a $1 pantry donation, backing year-round food help at the Town Office.
A reusable grocery bag in New London became a direct line to Sunapee’s food pantry on May 11, when the Town of Sunapee Welfare Department asked residents to buy Hannaford’s $2.50 Fight Hunger Bag. Each bag sold at the New London Hannaford Supermarket location sent $1 to help local families in need, making the fundraiser one of the easiest ways for shoppers to support the pantry while doing a routine grocery run.
The town’s welfare page says the Sunapee food pantry is stocked year-round with non-perishable goods and distributed to anyone in need. The human-services directory places the pantry at the Sunapee Town Office, where it provides dry goods and personal care items. The welfare department also offers temporary financial aid and resource referrals, along with help tied to veterans services, employment, mental health and substance abuse, housing, home repair, eye and dental care, disabilities, electric bills, fuel and transportation.
The need reaches beyond one town line. The New Hampshire Food Bank says 1 in 9 New Hampshire residents and 1 in 7 children face food insecurity. In Sullivan County, the food insecurity rate is 12.1% overall and 17.2% for children, figures that help explain why small, repeatable donations matter in a rural area where short-term hardship can quickly strain a household budget. Sunapee, which had a population of 3,342 at the 2020 census, also sits inside a wider pantry network that includes the Kearsarge Lake Sunapee Community Food Pantry serving households in Sunapee, New London, Newbury, Springfield, Wilmot and other nearby towns.
The bag campaign itself is not a one-off promotion. Hannaford says its reusable bag program has operated since April 2014, and its dashboard, updated April 25, showed 1,618 hunger organizations and 6,780 nonprofits supported through 3,946,153 donations to date. Sunapee is tapping into that established system to create a steady stream of small contributions instead of relying on a single large drive.
Recent pantry-need notices have asked for shelf-stable milk, soup, cereal, granola bars, fruit pouches and tuna or chicken packets, underscoring that the demand has stayed active. The effort also reflects the welfare department’s continuing role as a local safety net, with Laura Trow central to earlier pantry appeals and holiday gift drives.
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