Co-op News
Co-op Takes Cue From Youth
A New Hampshire food bank is more than $100,000 richer because of an 8-year-old karate student’s compassion and a two-minute bout with a punching bag.
New Hampshire EC, led by president and CEO Fred Anderson, helped raise funds for a food bank. (Photo By: Seth Wheeler)
It all started when the student donated the proceeds from a “punch-a-thon” to the New Hampshire Electric Co-op’s NHEC Foundation, with a request that the $250 in pledges go to a local food bank. “When he presented his check to the board in his karate outfit,” said Judy Gove, the foundation’s director, “we thought, ‘If this young boy can help, we can, too.’”
So the boards of the foundation and the co-op, both based in Plymouth, issued a challenge to consumer-members to raise $50,000 for the New Hampshire Food Bank, the state’s only food pantry.
In a three-month period, more than $52,000 poured in from individuals and businesses, with the co-op and foundation each kicking in another $25,000.
The gift was the food bank’s largest ever, said Gove, and will pay for more than 400,000 meals in the co-op’s service territory.