Photo courtesy of Tucker’s
Three Organizations and Businesses that Donate to Good Causes Across New Hampshire
TUCKER’S
This popular breakfast and lunch spot also gives back. Since husband-and-wife team Hale and Erica Cole-Tucker first established Tucker’s in Hooksett, New Hampshire, in 2014, the brand has steadily added five more locations: in New London, Concord, Merrimack, Bedford, and Dover, with a new location in Newington. Their motto is “Good Eats, Great People,” and a focus on community is at their core. For example, relationships with local farmers, growers, and makers is a central tenet: from eggs and milk to veggies, meat, and bread, Tucker’s sources as locally as possible. To date, 55% of their ingredients are sourced locally from family farms and small businesses.
In 2020, Tucker’s launched the Operation Good Eats for Great People initiative. Since then, they have donated over 3,500 meals to organizations “who are leading the way toward making our communities better and brighter,” such as schools and healthcare facilities. When these organizations are chosen for recognition, a process which invites the general public to nominate businesses for a place in the running, they are given gift vouchers for complimentary meals at Tucker’s locations.
TUCKER’S
566 Harvey Rd., Manchester
tuckersnh.com
MAMA BEAR’S COOKIES
Operating out of a yellow cottage straight from a fairytale is Mama Bear’s Cookies in Sullivan, New Hampshire. Bianca Alicea, owner and baker of Mama Bear’s, creates gourmet stuffed cookies from a weekly rotating menu. A portion of the sales of her cookies, sourced from local ingredients, support a Keene-based food pantry, Feeding Tiny Tummies. When Alicea, a dedicated foster parent, found out about the Tiny Tummies organization, she understood what a big service to the community they were, as, often, foster children were coming to her house undernourished. She saw that Tiny Tummies was counteracting child hunger, providing nutritious food with a “one bag, one child, one week” initiative, and wanted to spread the word and support them.
Now, in addition to donating to Tiny Tummies financially, Alicea bakes up her cookies, stuffed with ingredients like chocolate, caramel, and buttercream, for Tiny Tummies kids at special holidays like Christmas. She writes that she “believes that every child deserves to have a little sweetness regardless of their economic background,” and she is dedicated to making that happen.
MAMA BEAR’S COOKIES
1 Paquette Dr., Sullivan
mamabearscookies.shop
Photo courtesy of Mama Bear’s Cookies
RED’S GOOD VIBES
It started as a tribute. Red’s Good Vibes is a Portsmouth, New Hampshire–based nonprofit run by three siblings, Caitlin McGrath-Levesque, Meghan McGrath, and Michael DuPont, who wanted to honor their late brother, Red, and his vision of a food truck that would give away food for free. Started in 2019, the all-volunteer crew serve free meals to the unhoused and food insecure from two traveling food trucks. The trucks have a service range from Manchester, New Hampshire, to Northern Massachusetts to Portland, Maine, and to date they have served 500,000 meals.
Red’s Good Vibes’ mission statement declares, in part, that they “focus on radical giving without limits, without questions, and with a focus on choice, preference, and dignity.” According to McGrath-Levesque, people connect well over food, something her brother Red knew well. When she’s on the line, cooking cheeseburgers for hungry people, “it’s not help,” she says, “it’s sharing.” In that vein, the organization has grown to also support the Community Fridge Network, a series of self-serve fridges stocked with free food, across New Hampshire. With Red’s Good Vibes help, over 700 fridges have been established.
RED’S GOOD VIBES
P.O. Box 1092, Portsmouth
redsgoodvibes.com
Photo courtesy of Red’s Good Vibes
