Volunteer Today to Help Brighten Locals' Holidays

Seventh grade students in North Hampton School's service learning program will join forces today with a local nonprofit to help collect food for holiday meal baskets for area families in need.

The students will work with End 68 Hours of Hunger, a nonprofit created by Michele Peckham and Margaret Schoenberger to prevent Seacoast students from going hungry over the weekends.

Peckham said her group and the seventh graders will conduct a turkey drive at the school on Sunday, Dec. 16, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. to gather turkeys for baskets they plan to deliver to families receiving aid from End 68 Hours of Hunger.

Peckham said the nonprofit will provide everything else needed to fill the baskets, and asked any individuals able and willing to get involved in the cause to donate turkeys during Sunday's drive.

End 68 Hours of Hunger was started after local school social workers and employees began noticing alarming trends, particularly in regard to the number of students stockpiling food on Fridays and eating multiple breakfasts on Monday mornings.

This school year, approximately 50 Centre School and Marston School students identified by School Administrative Unit 90 employees have been anonymously and discretely receiving each Friday a backpack filled with food items to last them through to the start of the upcoming school week.

"People don’t understand that there really is a hunger issue in our community," Peckham, a North Hampton resident who also serves in the New Hampshire House of Representatives, has previously told Patch.

More information about the turkey drive or End 68 Hours of Hunger is available by contacting Peckham at 964-6422 or Schoenberger at 964-9733.