Hometown Heroes
	OUR 2024 COMMUNITY PARTNER While the challenges continue, so do the good works done by our neighbors, our teachers, our health care providers, our volunteers and so many others. This is their story. Ledyard National Bank is proud to support the 2024 Hometown Heroes, who were nominated by members of the community and selected by editors of the Concord Monitor. Nominate your Hometown Hero today.

By RAY DUCKLER

You might have seen some of Stacy Duffy’s Girl Scouts standing in front of grocery and convenience stores in recent days, selling those yummy cookies like Do-Si-Dos, Tagalongs and Samoas.She runs Troop 10162, and her lineup of girls has fanned out as...

By CATHERINE McLAUGHLIN

People often go to the library looking for something quite specific: the next mystery novel in a series, a tax form or maybe a political memoir. But, as any regular knows, libraries hold so much more than books between the stacks: free and engaging...

By RAY DUCKLER

Bob Wolfe heard the story nearly 25 years ago about a 10-year-old boy sprawled out on the side of a road in Sierre Leone shortly after a rebel fighter had cut off his legs.“That was it,” Wolfe said. “That was all I needed.” He had been shown the dark...

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

Rebecca Carlman knows a new blanket can go a long way when you are living out of a tent. She did so herself for three years – with cold winters and wet mornings after a night of rain leaving a lingering chill. So now she loads what supplies she can...

By RAY DUCKLER

The latest candidate for the Monitor’s Hometown Hero award, Lawre Murphy of Boscawen, strongly believed that her partner in keeping seniors on their toes, Brenda Bartlett, deserved the honor more than she did.Bartlett happened to be the woman who...

By RAY DUCKLER

LLeanna Lorden has a diminished role when it comes to face-to-face meetings with students at White Birch Center in Henniker. She was promoted to chief operating officer last summer, shifting to an administrative role filled with meetings and phone...

By RAY DUCKLER

Marilia Procopio, the portfolio manager at Elm Grove Companies in Manchester, is flexible like Gumby.How else to explain how she crams three sections of her busy life into one neat little daily package? She’s a single mother raising her 14-year-old...

By SRUTHI GOPALAKRISHNAN

Each day at 2:30 p.m., as the school bus arrives with kids from Beaver Meadow for their after-school program at First Start, Heather Tobine stands ready at the entrance of the building to welcome them.“The best part of coming to work is spreading a...

By RAY DUCKLER

Shilo Lynn of Allenstown read on Facebook recently that residents in the area had given food and money to a woman in the downtown village of Suncook.The woman had been spending an inordinate amount of time on a bench under a street light, alone,...

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

It’s hard for Claire Nepa to explain how long it took her to find peas in the grocery store without laughing. It sounds ridiculous now – it’s just a can or frozen bag of vegetables.But when peas sound like “piece” which also sounds like “peace,”...

By SRUTHI GOPALAKRISHNAN

Susi von Oettingen is always on the lookout for endangered species.Take her to a river, and she’ll look for mussels. Bring her to a wetland at dusk, and she’ll watch for bats in the sky. On a sandy beach, her focus shifts to scanning for plovers along...

By RAY DUCKLER

Barbara Hays trained employees at a telephone and communications company for decades.These days, at age 80, the Bow resident is still involved in communications, but she no longer needs to say anything to anybody.Her quilts say it all.“Barbara has...

By ERIC RYNSTON-LOBEL

Steve Garside’s family will welcome some guests to their home later this fall: Buddhist monks from the Drepung Gomang Monastery in Tibet. His wife, Lisa, who owns Ohana Yoga in Contoocook, has been connected with them for several years now. This will...

By RAY DUCKLER

Wanted: 40 employees to bolster the wafer-thin staff at Community Bridges, an organization that provides support of all kinds to those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.“And that is just us,” said Ann Potoczak, the CEO of Community...

By RAY DUCKLER

Aidan Mini and Michelle Fridlington had no idea last spring that their lives would be intertwined forever.They formed an alliance last May, unknown to them at the time, before Aidan’s senior year at Gilford High School. She was the wellness teacher at...

By DAVID BROOKS

When Jonathan Hunt came on board at Whaleback Mountain, which like many independent ski areas had repeatedly flirted with failure for 20 years, he knew that it would take more than speeding up the chairlift to keep things going. “Immediately my job...

By RAY DUCKLER

Mike French’s green thumb means food for the less fortunate.He tends to the Lions Club Community Garden in Henniker and ships his produce to two food pantries, one in his hometown, the other in Hopkinton. And if he has a surplus of food after the...

By RAY DUCKLER

Joan O’Connor wonders how her good friend, Monica Rico, reaches out in so many directions.With her daily schedule of volunteer work and dedication to bringing healthy, organic food to the Granite State, it’s a wonder how she gets it all done.“She’s...

By RAY DUCKLER

Dawn Shimberg of Campton worked at a vendor booth last month at the annual Tilton-Northfield Old Home Day.There, as the director of the Youth Assistance Program in Tilton, she promoted a service that she’s led for a dozen years, aimed at troubled...

By RAY DUCKLER

Tim Blagden is heading in the right direction.For several years, he’s been dreaming of a hiking, biking and walking trail 34-miles long that, with a landowner’s permission, would allow snowmobiling in certain spots. As Blagden saw it, a trail...

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

Sometimes when Kaleigh Greene tries to list her volunteer roles, it’s hard to know where to start. There’s her stepson’s Boy Scout Troop, his school parent-teacher organization in Northfield, the Concord Young Professionals Network and the Greater...