Summer EBT aims to provide access to nutritious food during the summer months, ensuring that eligible children in New Hampshire can continue to access critical nutrition when school is not in session. School-aged children who attend a school enrolled in the National School Lunch Program/School Breakfast Program (NSLP/SBP) and are eligible to receive free or reduced-price meals are also eligible for Summer EBT, which totals $120 per eligible child. 

Robie Farm has raised beef, pork, and poultry in Piermont since 1870. Twelve miles up Route 10, sandwiched between the Connecticut River and the Appalachian Trail, the Haverhill Cooperative Middle School has served lunches to adolescents since 1968. 

But due to the complicated and frugal economics driving school meal supplies, the farm has never been a natural supplier to the school district up the road. Amid the thorny, balance-sheet-driven purchase decisions year after year, beef and chicken from out of state typically win the day. 

Last school year, that changed slightly: The school district’s food supplier bought about $3,000 of beef patties from Robie Farm, said Jonathan Flopke, the farm’s sales and operations manager. And this coming school year, the district is seeking to increase those purchases, boosted by a new grant from the state intended to build on a movement: “Farm to School.” 

New Hampshire is spending $190,000 on a pilot program to improve the ability of school districts to buy food from New Hampshire farms. In May, the Department of Agriculture, Markets, and Food awarded eight school districts amounts ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 for the coming school year; the Executive Council approved those awards in late June.

By Tracy Kidder

Mr. Kidder is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. He reported from Massachusetts.

Parts of Easthampton, an old mill town in western Massachusetts, look like relics of industrial New England — the old workers’ rowhouses, for instance. In other parts, it seems like a place in renaissance, with converted factory buildings spruced up and reinhabited by art galleries, restaurants, shops. Pedestrians fill the sidewalks on Friday and Saturday nights, especially during monthly art walk evenings. But on Monday mornings, when the downtown feels shuttered, another sort of crowd, one in search of food, not art and entertainment, gathers on a side street outside a 19th-century brick building. A sign out front identifies it as the Easthampton Community Center and Food Pantry.

The center distributes free groceries on Mondays and Wednesdays, but Monday is usually busier because many people it serves have run out of food by then.It all begins with an idea.

IWhen Michelle Lawrence heard about the Medicaid cuts included in the Republican tax and spending bill signed into law on July 4, it felt like “a punch to the gut.”

“I laugh, because if I don’t laugh, I cry,” she said.

Lawrence, who lives in Henniker, was diagnosed with a chronic form of cancer called T-cell lymphocytic leukemia 16 years ago. She said she lost her job about five years ago because the cancer was making it too difficult for her to work. And in losing her job, she lost her health insurance because she couldn’t afford COBRA coverage or anything on the marketplace.

“So I applied for Medicaid, which has been a major lifeline for me,” she continued. “That has enabled me and a lot of other cancer patients like me to be able to access the treatment needed in the past few years. I’m here. I’m alive and a contributing member of society. … Without Medicaid, I wouldn’t be able to afford my treatments or go to the doctor.”