NASHUA – Thirteen food pantries located in Nashua and the surrounding towns will receive a bounty of food donations during the first week in June thanks to United Way of Greater Nashua’s annual “Kevin Slattery Memorial Food Drive”. This year’s drive, created in memory of long-time United Way board member Kevin Slattery, will take place on June 3rd and 4th from 10am to 2pm at 10 local stores each day. The issues of food insecurity and homelessness were close to Kevin Slattery’s heart and the drive was created to honor his life-long commitment to serving the community.

More than 100 volunteers will be part of the effort to collect food donations that will supply 13 local pantries with food for the summer months, a time when food donations are typically low. Individual volunteers and volunteer groups from local faith communities, schools, and charitable organizations will be helping collect United Way’s target amount of 2000 lbs. of food donations.

Some of the nonperishable Items needed include canned soup, pasta, tomato sauce, crackers, shampoo, toothpaste, peanut butter, coffee, and rice.

According to the charitable organization, Feeding America, 1 in 15 people in New Hampshire are facing hunger. Their website indicates that this comes to 93,940 food-insecure people in New Hampshire with 21,670 of being children.

This drive is one of United Way of Greater Nashua’s many projects fighting food insecurity in our region. United Way works with Nashua Soup Kitchen and Shelter to provide free fresh food to residents in Nashua neighborhoods at their daily “Pop-Up Pantries”. United Way also holds smaller-scale weekly food drives at various stores around the area and offers free volunteer-driven grocery delivery to homebound people from food pantries. To find out about volunteering for these projects and others, visit https://tinyurl.com/UWGNVolunteer.

Those interested in donating food to the drive may do so at the following stores on June 3rd and 4th between 10am and 2pm:

Hannaford, Nashua

Hannaford, Hudson

Homestead Grocery, Amherst

State Line Convenience Mart, Brookline

House By the Side of the Road Convenience, Wilton

Jeanotte’s Market, Nashua

Shaw’s DW Highway, Nashua

Shaw’s Main Street, Nashua

Shaw’s, Milford

Shaw’s, North Merrimack

The food and personal hygiene supplies collected at this drive will go to the following food pantries serving Greater Nashua residents:

Nashua Soup Kitchen and Shelter

End 68 Hours of Hunger, Nashua

Corpus Christi Food Pantry, Nashua

St. Joseph Hospital Employee Pantry, Nashua

Southern NH Rescue Mission, Nashua

Greater Nashua Mental Health

St. John Neumann Food Pantry, Merrimack

St. James United Methodist Food Pantry, Merrimack

SHARE Outreach, Milford

Hudson Food Pantry

Open Cupboard Food Pantry, Wilton

Rivier University Student Pantry, Nashua

Nashua Community College Student Pantry

For more information about this project please contact United Way at info@unitedwaynashua.org or (603)882-4011.