New Hampshire girls, who are twice as likely as New Hampshire boys to experience poor mental health, depression, self-harm, and suicide consideration, have the highest rate of poor mental health amongst New England girls and a 9% higher rate of poor mental health than the national average for girls. Those numbers increase greatly for gay, lesbian, or bisexual girls, and questioning girls.

“Young people need more than somewhere to go after school,” explained Jennifer Minicucci, AIR’s Executive Director. “They need places where they are known, where caring adults show up consistently, where they can take a risk without being afraid to fail, and where who they are is welcomed. AIR is that ‘third space’—a place outside of home and school where young people can make art, make friends, try something new, and begin to see themselves and their futures differently.”

AIR works towards three outcomes with and for participants: building a stronger sense of self through creative expression and exploration; creating belonging through healthy relationships with peers, mentors, and community; and developing a sense of purpose that encourages curiosity, goal-setting, and hope for the future. Art is the tool, but the larger goal is healthy development.

Since their founding, AIR has provided a wide variety of community arts and mentorship programs evolving over time to remove barriers to participation. All AIR programs are free and include transportation, supplies, snacks, and professional teaching artists. More recently, and with the support of the NHWF, AIR has expanded its Outreach work, bringing multi-session programs directly into schools, residential programs, and other community settings for young people who may not be able to reach AIR’s traditional programs even when those programs are free.

In 2025, the Women’s Foundation awarded AIR a Community Grant for general operational support as the organization continued this evolution. “Flexible support gives us the ability to respond to what young people are telling us they need,” said Minicucci. “It has helped us expand access, strengthen partnerships, and reach young people who might otherwise be left out.”

AIR’s story is one of both continuity and change. What began as an effort to create opportunity and community for girls has grown into an inclusive creative youth development organization serving young people across the Seacoast, while remaining deeply committed to girls, gender-expansive youth, and others whose identities or circumstances can make belonging harder to find. The New Hampshire Women’s Foundation has been honored to support AIR through that evolution.

To learn more about AIR or our other 2025 grantees, visit: https://nhwomensfoundation.org/grantmaking/2025-grant-recipients/. 

To learn more about girls’ mental health, visit our Status of Girls in New Hampshire report: https://nhwomensfoundation.org/status-of-girls-nh/. 

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A sense of belonging leads to involvement, opportunity, social change, emotional safety, creativity, and joy. Queerlective brings people together in many ways, both online and in real life. They host a Discord channel where people can feel safe to share and connect virtually; they host social events like kayaking and art museum tours; they even have a physical space called the “Co-Lab” where people come to create, connect, and be in community. “In order for us to build the kind of change in communities we want, belonging comes first, and that is where Queerlective is really well positioned and focusing our work,” Nielsen told us. 

Queerlective’s mission is “To celebrate and uplift our shared humanity through queer joy, art, and community connection,” and their work extends in such a way that all feel welcomed to participate, to take action, to feel like they belong and that they are capable of making a difference. “Queerlective was intentional in utilizing the word ‘queer’ because our liberation is shared amongst so many communities. We uplift anybody that might feel like the system doesn’t work, isn’t working for them, or might feel the need to establish that sense of belonging and across differences,” said Nielsen. 

A 2025 Community Grant recipient, Queerlective is a blueprint for new pathways to inclusion through artistry, self-expression, community building, and a strong, provable belief that belonging begets involvement, involvement generates social change, and social change leads to belonging for all. We are thrilled to be part of their ongoing work.

To learn more about Queerlective or our other 2025 grantees, visit: https://nhwomensfoundation.org/grantmaking/2025-grant-recipients/. 

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From the moment you walk into MCAC, you are met with a smile and a warm welcome that says you belong. MCAC’s growth over the last six years has been led by founding Executive Director Kile Adumene, who brings wisdom and a deep commitment to this work. Kile’s vision is realized every time community members gather, voices are heard, connections are built, learning happens, and a true sense of belonging and inclusion is felt. 

The establishment of a physical center is a major advancement for MCAC and the communities and organizations they work with; it is a central hub for ideation, togetherness, growth, and learning. Information on topics such as racial justice, emotional regulation, and health equity fill the room, outlined by vibrant colors and calming plant life. When people gather there, there is a sense of intentionality and belonging that highlights MCAC’s commitment to being an organization by the community and for the community.

A Q&A with MCAC Executive Director, Kile Adumene

Q: What is now possible with MCAC’s new physical space?

A: The core function of our new space is to strengthen working relationships. In an increasingly digital and transactional world, this space allows us to focus on essential human connections. By fostering authentic interactions, we can better navigate complex dynamics and resolve conflicts – both being necessary steps toward changing systems.

Specific examples of how the space supports our four core activities:
– Agency: The space is a Community-Led Project Incubator where members prototype ideas like childcare initiatives, voting projects, and mutual aid, etc. This ensures the community co-creates and drives the agenda. Participatory research hub for the community, leadership and professional development.
– Advocacy: Our Public Testimony Prep Room provides a supportive environment for community members to practice [giving] testimony, receive coaching, and workshop talking points before engaging with policymakers.
– Engagement: Through Community Space Hours and Intergenerational Circles, we offer flexible time for people to engage in community conversations on cross-sector issues, socialize, share stories, and organically surface emerging issues.
– Education: We facilitate Hands-On Skill Labs and a Community Research Studio equipped with laptops and printers, providing a hub for self-directed learning and workforce development.

Q: As a leader who focuses a lot of time on supporting and lifting up others as leaders, what keeps you up at night?

A: I am often up at night thinking about the responsibility of ensuring I am doing my part to maintain and sustain this space alongside our community.

Q: As the founder of MCAC, an organization that has shifted and changed so much in five years, what gives you hope?

A: Knowing that the sustainability of this space is co-held by the people it serves, rather than resting solely on my shoulders.

The New Hampshire Women’s Foundation awarded MCAC a 2025 Community Grant for their mission to elevate the voices of People of Color (POC) in New Hampshire by co-creating spaces for community engagement and development, equipping POC to have equitable opportunities and representation in civic and community matters.

To learn more about MCAC, visit: https://www.mcacnh.org/

To learn more about our other 2025 grantees, visit: https://nhwomensfoundation.org/grantmaking/2025-grant-recipients/. 

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The impact of steep living expenses is felt across the state, but single mothers and their children feel the highest impact. In Hillsborough County, single mothers make up 76% of households living in poverty, and the need for housing and childcare has quintupled since 2020. Parents everywhere want what is best for their children, but when a family lacks safe, stable housing, surviving day to day becomes the only focus.

The Women’s Foundation awarded Marguerite’s Place a 2025 Community Grant to advance their holistic model of support for women and their children experiencing homelessness. The expansion of their Nashua campus will increase the number of living units from 10 to 25 and increase the number of available childcare slots from 30 to 50. With their number of applicants jumping from 40 in 2019 to 250 in 2025, the need for this growth is urgent.

“Misinformation about who is homeless and why they are homeless [is] stigma. And there are so many more unhoused people than the Point-in-Time (PIT) count demonstrates. SO many are on the verge of homelessness and those numbers are rising,” says Hannah Stohler, Executive Director of Marguerite’s Place. “There is no one single solution; it takes time to meaningfully address and break cycles of homelessness for families.”

With high-quality, trauma-informed childcare, residents can focus on personalized case management plans designed to build long-term stability. During their typical two-year stay, they participate in skill-building courses, including financial literacy, while working toward educational and career goals. Today, 100% of Marguerite’s Place residents are employed or enrolled in school within 90 days of their.

Marguerite’s Place’s holistic approach is transformative for women and children and we are glad to be part of their journey.

To learn more about women’s economic security, visit our Status of Women in New Hampshire report: https://nhwomensfoundation.org/status-of-women-nh/. 

To learn more about Marguerite’s Place or our other 2025 grantees, visit: https://nhwomensfoundation.org/grantmaking/2025-grant-recipients/. 

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New Hampshire girls are twice as likely as boys to experience poor mental health, depression, self-harm, and suicide consideration. Although girls are more likely to ask for help than boys, there are seemingly insurmountable barriers to accessing mental health services.

The Women’s Foundation provided a 2025 community grant to Safe Schools New Hampshire (SSNH), a school-centered, rapid-access, online therapy program being piloted in five school districts (Hopkinton, Lebanon, Claremont, Newport, and Kearsarge). 

School counselors and teachers make referrals, parents are involved, and more students are getting the treatment they need. In addition to the clinical providers, the student ambassadors are the key ingredient in this new recipe for success. Selected Juniors and Seniors in all five districts act as student ambassadors, leading the effort to destigmatize and normalize the topic of seeking mental health support. There is no one better suited to spread the word throughout a student community than the students themselves. Notably, 80% of the student ambassadors are young women.

The 2025 Community Grant awarded to SSNH is being used to compensate the student ambassadors for stepping into this leadership role and using their voices to speak out on mental health and wellness. The students lead the way in promotion, messaging, and having important conversations with peers who would benefit from accessing this support in this online format. 

“There is power and energy in these students,” says Mark Phillips, Executive Director. “When we release that energy by trusting and empowering them, we harness a powerful force that fortifies the program.” In September, the close of the first year, 120 NH students will have received fast-access online therapy and benefited from 1,000 therapy sessions. For most of those students, this was the first time they had therapy.

The voices of these young SSNH student leaders have reached thousands of students across the Granite State and we were pleased to be a part of their journey.

To learn more about girls’ mental health, visit our Status of Girls in New Hampshire report: https://nhwomensfoundation.org/status-of-girls-nh/. 

To learn more about SSNH or our other 2025 grantees, visit: https://nhwomensfoundation.org/grantmaking/2025-grant-recipients/. 

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One highlight of this year’s Status of Women report is data that tells us about women’s specific struggles with mental health, maternal health, and access to reproductive health care. 

In the face of increasing need, several of our 2025 Grantees are working tirelessly to address these struggles, in several regions of the state:

Mental health impacts everyone, but the journey to recovery and healing for women who experience trauma, homelessness, substance use disorder and justice involvement is hugely challenging. Pregnant and parenting women with substance use disorder who find their way to Hope on Haven Hill (located in Rochester, serving women statewide), are supported through a variety of residential and outpatient programs. Core to their philosophy at Hope on Haven Hill is to ensure access to treatment by designing many pathways to meet their unique needs.

Young mothers in rural areas already face challenges that limit their access to basic needs and support. TLC Family Resource Center’s New Moms Group helps young mothers in Sullivan County to navigate despite disproportionately high rates of isolation, anxiety, and postpartum depression. Access to maternal health through peer connection, parenting education, and emotional support for the group’s participants makes a lasting difference for New Moms and their families.

New Hampshire’s independent reproductive and sexual health centers (Lovering Health Center in Rockingham County and Equality Health Center in Merrimack County) provide quality, comprehensive, nonjudgmental health information and services to all. Access to care that is equitable and inclusive is critical in supporting the right of everyone to maintain freedom and choices regarding their own reproductive and sexual health.

We are proud to support these 2025 Grantees with funding for general operations and program expenses, to help ensure their focus on access continues and expands for all women in New Hampshire. 

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“We are outraged that four of our five Executive Councilors voted this week to withhold funding for family planning and reproductive and sexual health care including birth control, cancer screenings, gender-affirming care and STI testing. We are ashamed that the State of New Hampshire has turned its back on Granite State women and girls, in particular low-income and minority women who stand to lose the most with the Council’s defunding of these clinics.

“The contracts the Executive Council denied this week would have covered testing and treatment for 80% of the patients in the NH Family Planning Program, which means the Council’s decision to withhold funds disproportionately impacts low-income Granite Staters. Equally alarming is that our latest research, from our soon-to-be released Status of Girls in New Hampshire report, shows that from 2014-2019 there was a 36.2% increase in Chlamydia cases for New Hampshire girls age 13-19. Now is not the time for the State of New Hampshire to turn its back on women and girls who need access to reproductive health care.

Now more than ever, we must ensure that New Hampshire women, girls and marginalized genders are able to receive the care they need, and we call on the Executive Council to right this wrong and restore funding to these health care providers.

“In the meantime, as a show of support for these reproductive and sexual health providers, we are immediately sending $7,500 grants to each of the providers defunded this week: the Joan G. Lovering Health Center*, the Equality Health Center, and Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. 

“As a pro-choice statewide community foundation, we support — and will continue to invest in and advocate for — access to a full range of reproductive and sexual health care for all who need it.”

*Our community grants program awarded $7,500 this month to Joan G. Lovering Health Center and we are matching that grant with $7,500 each to Equality Health Center and Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. 

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This year’s grantmaking awarded $125,000 to organizations across the state.

COVID-19 Rapid Response Grants

In April, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the New Hampshire Women’s Foundation made rapid-response grants to organizations directly serving women and girls, supporting their operations.  These organizations were: Arts in Reach, Circle Program, Girls at Work, Girls Inc. of New Hampshire, Girls on the Run, Hospice Help Foundation and the four New Hampshire United Way Agencies.

(Learn more on our COVID-19 Rapid Response Grantees)

2020 Community Grants

Additionally, we recently awarded fifteen Community Grants, worth $55,000, to organizations from every county in the state which provide day-to-day support to the women and girls of New Hampshire. Grants went to help end homelessness, support programming for incarcerated women, provide support for victims of domestic abuse, fund STEM programs to empower girls, offer financial training to low-income women, and support training more advocates for abused children.

(Learn more about our 2020 Community Grantees)

“We support New Hampshire women, girls and families in a variety of ways through the New Hampshire Women’s Foundation” said CEO, Tanna Clews. “Our grantmaking allows us to directly support the important work that so many of our partner organizations are doing to build economic power, social justice and a strong voice for women, girls and families in the Granite State. ”

New Hampshire Women’s Foundation 2020 Community Grantees, by County

Statewide

Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains, based in Bedford, serves girls around the Granite State building girls of courage, confidence and character was funded to support the Outreach Troop Program, serving at-risk and marginalized girls in afterschool programming in their local communities.

New Hampshire Humanities of Concord, which fosters discovery, self-reflection and  lifelong learning across the state was funded to support Connections Adult Literacy Program at the New Hampshire Women’s Prison, forging stronger bonds between incarcerated women and their children.

Prison Yoga Project supports incarcerated people with trauma-informed yoga and mindfulness practices was funded to support their yoga teacher training program for New Hampshire incarcerated women.

Belknap

Belknap House of Laconia, which provides a safe shelter for homeless families in Belknap County was funded to support their transition to a year-round shelter for homeless families.

Carrol

Women’s Rural Entrepreneurial Network (WREN) of Bethlehem, which supports rural entrepreneurs in Carroll, Coos and Grafton Counties, was funded to support its ability to deliver more on-line programming to those it serves.

Cheshire

Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA-NH) of Manchester, which provides a voice for abused and neglected children in New Hampshire was funded to support new advocates in Cheshire County.

Harris Center for Conservation Education of Hancock, which promotes understanding and respect for the natural environment was funded to support their LAB GIRLS program which strives to reduce the gender gap in STEM fields.

Shelter from the Storm of Jaffrey, which provides transitional housing and support program for homeless people in Cheshire County was funded to support their work with women and children in their programs.

Coos

The Family Resource Center of Gorham, which builds healthier families and strong communities in the North Country was funded to support its afterschool STEAM programs.

Women’s Rural Entrepreneurial Network (WREN) of Bethlehem, which supports rural entrepreneurs in Carroll, Coos and Grafton Counties, was funded to support its ability to deliver more on-line programming to those it serves.

Grafton

The Bridge Project of Lincoln, which connects local people in Grafton County with the resources they need was funded to support its Virago Girls Mentoring Program.

Women’s Rural Entrepreneurial Network (WREN) of Bethlehem, which supports rural entrepreneurs in Carroll, Coos and Grafton Counties, was funded to support its ability to deliver more on-line programming to those it serves.

Hillsborough

Breakthrough Manchester, which launches promising Manchester middle school students on the path to college while inspiring high school and college students to pursue careers in education was funded to provide their “Students Teaching Students” academic programming for middle school girls with limited opportunities.

Merrimack

DOVE, NH Pro Bono Legal Referral System of Concord, which provide access to legal representation to low-income families around the state was funded to support establishing a pilot program in Franklin for representation at protective order hearings.

Rockingham

Children’s Museum of New Hampshire of Dover, which engages families across the state in hands-on discovery was funded to support the expansion of their Girls + STEAM program.

New Generation of Greenland, which provides shelter for homeless pregnant women and new mothers in Rockingham County was funded to support their ability to provide permanent housing, employment and education to local families.

Strafford

New Generation of Greenland, which provides shelter for homeless pregnant women and new mothers in Rockingham County was funded to support their ability to provide permanent housing, employment and education to local families.

Sullivan

Turning Point Network of Claremont, which enhances the safety and wellbeing of victims and survivors of domestic violence in Sullivan County was funded to support its ability to continue to serve the 1000+ survivors its serves annually.

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Mary-Jo Monusky is the Executive Director at Arts In Reach (AIR).

What does AIR do and how do you do it? Arts In Reach (AIR) is a nonprofit organization that provides access to arts and mentoring for at-risk girls ages 13 to 20 from Southeastern New Hampshire.  AIR cultivates teenage girls’ creativity, self-confidence, healthy relationships, and critical life, work and leadership skills. In addition to creating arts themselves, our girls have the chance to attend various regional cultural venues and public performances.

What keeps you up at night?  We have teens who are suicidal, living in homeless shelters, socially isolated, or dealing with substance abuse in their families. When sharing with the group about the town they were from, a teen who was staying at a Children’s Home said, “I am from nowhere.” In response to a survey question about the impact of AIR, one AIR alumna answered, “I am still alive.” These words linger with me and motivate me to work even harder!

What gives you hope? I am inspired by young people getting more involved in their communities, speaking out about what they value, and being savvy about social media. Our program theme for this year is “Still We Rise: Cultivating Courage,” which encourages our teens to stand up for what they believe, consider their actions carefully, and honor women who have stood before them.

What should the community know about your work that it may not currently know? At AIR, our girls find their voices. I am always amazed at the transformation of these young women from their first day, when they are nervous and shy, to the final showcase or exhibition.

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