Willing Hands

06/03/2026

You're invited to join us for our monthly Gardening with Pride volunteer session in the garden! This event offers LGBTQ+ volunteers, our friends, families, and allies a welcoming space to connect, enjoy peak summer garden lushness, and make a meaningful impact on food insecurity in the Upper Valley.

Gardening with Pride takes place the second Tuesday of the month, June through October, at Willing Hands’ home garden in Norwich.

Sign up: https://dash.pointapp.org/events/687656

06/03/2026

Joe shops at our Community Food Market. He described it as abundant.

The market is stocked by a network of partners across the region. The Vermont Foodbank provides dairy, meat, produce, and shelf-stable items. So do the Hanover Co-op, Hannaford, and Dan & Whit's. Willing Hands delivers recovered food from farms, grocery stores, and restaurants at no cost, year-round. Black River Produce, Montshire Packing, and Liberal Beef are local sources for eggs, produce, and meat.

These are just a few of them.

A family of four can leave with what a family of four actually needs.

Vermont Foodbank, Co-op Food Stores, Hannaford Supermarkets, Dan And Whits, Willing Hands, Black River Produce, MontShire Farms, Liberal Beef Co

06/02/2026

NH Gives' 24 hours of giving is just a week away! Get ready to join your community in supporting Upper Valley food security and help us meet our $10,000 goal between 5PM Tuesday June 9 and 5PM Wednesday June 10.

Your participation, at any level, helps us unlock matching gifts and incentive prizes, which means more food for our neighbors!

Take a moment now to put a reminder on your calendar or phone for June 9th at 5pm.

06/02/2026

06/01/2026

In 2025, 794 Willing Hands volunteers spent 4,793 hours volunteering over 409 sessions. In total, community members harvested 77,920 pounds of food!

Read our full 2026 Volunteer Report: https://willinghands.org/2026/06/01/vol-report-2026/

05/27/2026

Join us in celebrating Milt & Carolyn Frye - champions of Willing Hands’ gleaning program!

Milton and Carolyn Frye have been a core part of the Willing Hands’ gleaning program since they became volunteers in 2008. When the program started, it was occasionally just the two of them, Executive Director Heather Bagley, and long-time Willing Hands staff member Jim McCracken, out in the field. 18 years later, in 2025, the gleaning program hosted more than 200 volunteers, often working shoulder to shoulder with the Fryes to harvest everything from apples to zucchini. The program has grown, but the work and the driving force are the same. Milt and Carolyn put it this way: “Gleaners feel they can make a difference by harvesting fresh, locally grown surplus produce for those who would otherwise not be able to afford it. We really enjoy working in the fields at local farms with like-minded gleaners. It’s rewarding work on so many levels.”

The Fryes won’t be glean leaders in 2026, as they’ve recently taken on a new project: being first-time grandparents! We are eternally grateful for their years of service building and sustaining this core part of Willing Hands’ mission.

05/25/2026

Our first glean of the season happened this past Thursday at Honey Field Farm in Norwich! 6 volunteers helped us glean 40 lbs of overwintered onions which had turned into these beautiful spring bunches of goodness. 💚🧅💜

05/25/2026

Since 2009, WLFS and Willing Hands have worked together to help provide farm-fresh eggs to local neighbors in need. 💙🥚💛 Thanks to generous community donations, tens of thousands of eggs have been shared over the years — but the need continues to grow.

If you have extra fresh eggs from your flock, donations can be dropped off right at WLFS (see cashier). Willing Hands picks them up once a week for local distribution.

Thank you for helping feed our community! 🐓

05/22/2026

Thank you to the group of skilled Hypertherm Associates volunteers who helped us rebuild our 14x100ft hoop house after it was badly damaged in a windstorm last December! Over two sessions this spring, Hypertherm employees helped us completely disassemble and rebuild the structure.

Hoop houses are an important tool for extending the Upper Valley’s short growing season. They warm up the soil and air early in spring and keep things warm through early fall cold snaps, allowing us to grow more food for our community by extending our season by at least 30 days on either side of the summer growing season.

In addition to important building projects like the hoop house, we host a range of Hypertherm volunteers from multiple departments across the growing season, including regular visits from the HOPE Foundation and Hypertherm’s cohort of summer student interns. Lasting corporate partnerships like theirs – one that is rooted in the collective fight for local food security – make our work more impactful year after year.