Last year, more than 900 people donated to the Friends Program and 820 volunteers gave more than 180,000 hours of service. During the last ten years, Friends Program volunteers have given more than 2.3 million hours to help at-risk children, homeless families, isolated seniors, and others. Each hour and each dollar represents you and others you know, giving your support, your time and attention and expertise to someone right here in our community.

Our volunteers helped preschool children learn the alphabet. They mentored children, attending baseball games and hiking with them, providing a stable presence and a positive adult role model. Our volunteers painted rooms at our shelter for homeless families. They led free exercise classes to keep seniors healthy. They drove seniors to their doctors and to the grocery store. They filled backpacks to keep food insecure kids fed over the weekend when school lunch isn’t an option. Our volunteers made the life of someone in New Hampshire better in countless ways. All of this is because of you.

The powerful part of this story is more than the extraordinary impact of our programs on the clients we serve. It is that our impact on our clients is only half of the story. Our volunteers tell us that their service is one of the most rewarding things they have ever done.

In helping others, we help ourselves. That is the true magic of giving. Thank you for giving of yourself to the Friends Program and making the work that we do possible.  

With admiration and thanks,

 

Nancy Paul
Executive Director