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Mission: Monadnock

Name: Mission: Monadnock
Address: Peterborough, NH, US
Telephone: +16038314629

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Mission: Monadnock

Celebrating everyday people on a mission to make the Monadnock region great! What is Mission: Monadnock? This page is a celebration of the people in our region.

Because isn’t this area seriously the best? There’s a real sense of community and cooperation here, with so many amazing people living lives of quiet generosity every day. I love sharing their stories. Lucky me, I was born and raised right at the foot of the mountain. I left in my 20s, lived in a quarter of the US states, then spent a decade in Africa before finally coming home in 2019. Now my fab

ulous day job is spearheading a Trauma-Informed Community program through all 33 towns of the greater Monadnock public health network. My side gig as a real estate agent allows me to help people birth their Monadnock-region homeownership dreams. First and foremost, though, I’m a writer. A great perk of my work is that I meet people all over the region, and it’s so much fun producing these snapshot stories that highlight how our neighbors are being of service all around us. You’re welcome to reach out if you want to talk about the trauma-informed community program or you’re looking for a real estate agent. Most of all, I hope you will enjoy these stories of the lovely people living here in our beautiful Monadnock corner of the world. Anena Hansen
Keller Williams Realty, Bedford
168 S River Rd, Bedford NH 03110
603 232 8282

04/03/2025

Justin Somma, Keene

I’m the manager at Hannah Grimes Marketplace, a local product store in Keene. The marketplace was founded 28 years ago by a local crafter named Marianne who wanted a store to sell her wares. Hannah Grimes had been a local maker who participated in the regional economy of the early 1800s, and it seemed like a fitting name. Now it’s one of the Main Street anchor tenants. Looking at all the beautiful things in the marketplace is part of the reason why I got affiliated with them — whenever my family would come up to visit, we would walk Main Street, and we would always stop there. It was always one of my favorite stores.

One thing I enjoy about Keene is that it’s urban, but not a megalopolis. I enjoy the space of Keene — it's like an extension of my home. When I lived off in the hinterlands, my library was the bookshelf in my living room, and now it's this beautiful public library. My gym was in my basement, and now it’s this gorgeous facility at the Y. It’s all part of this urban structure. My living room is Main Street. It doesn’t have to be inside the walls of my domicile, it can be what’s out and about and around us.

I hike the streets around town, all the little nook and crannies. Keene is an amazing city with so much character, so many spots of interest and hidden Easter Eggs just waiting to be found. It inspires a true sense of place, and people need to have a sense of place if they're going to be a successful community.

02/08/2024

Mark, Keene
Owner, Deep Roots Massage

I came to massage therapy because I was bored. I was in sales, but I was never really great at it. I knew I needed to go back to school if I was going to get ahead, so I looked at the sensible thing of going to business school, which would help me get into management—but I realized, if I’m not really passionate about my work now, how is management going to help?

I’d had a massage from a friend four years prior, and it was transformative. So when I gave myself the opportunity to think about what I really wanted to do, rather than what I thought I should do, massage therapy rose to the top of the pile.

I enrolled at River Valley Community College. I loved school—I loved the interaction of working with other people, and I loved getting massages all the time. I didn’t want to work alone, so I began to offer space in my house for other practitioners to come and play. That worked its way into our own office. We became an employer back in 2013 and moved into a space in downtown Keene. We opened the doors there with five rooms and three therapists total, and I worked forty hours a week, running from room to room—I would give a full-hour massage to somebody and then literally just go to the next room and do it again. Ten years later, we have sixteen therapists, three guest support staff, and I get half an hour between clients.

Business ownership is most joyful when you’re tapped into the greater life force of the community, when everybody’s supporting each other and supporting themselves in the process. When I first became a therapist, with my own business and not a lot of time on my hands, I would volunteer at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center, doing hand and foot massages in a chair, and I would say to myself with my inner nasty voice, “What are you doing? Why are you doing this for free, this is dumb, you should be working on your business.” But I would leave later that day with an attitude adjustment as to what is really important in this world. There are times when connection and touch can be so crucial in someone’s life. This is something meaningful to do, and to have that be part of your income, that’s the place I want to be.

02/02/2024

Cathy, Swanzey

I experienced abuse as a child and a young adult. For years into my adulthood I was one of those people who, when asked how I was, would say, “fine, I’m fine.” And I thought I was. Until I eventually realized, no, I really wasn’t, because that childhood abuse had impacted me. So I went through a program which helps people deal with trauma that comes from abuse—facing it, putting a name to it, and identifying your own ways to move through it. Because it doesn’t just go away, right? Then I became a facilitator myself, so I could help other people with that process, and it’s been incredibly rewarding.

There’s not very much societal permission to talk about childhood abuse experiences. Nobody’s walking around saying, “hey, sexual abuse happened to me, does anybody recommend a support group?” A lot of people tell me, “I’m so glad you’re talking about this,” because nobody talks about having been abused as a child and the impact it has. We know it follows us and shows up in so many different ways in adulthood, yet many times, people aren’t making that connection—BECAUSE nobody talks about this! So I help people make that connection and help it be okay to ask for support.

The first group I led, I figured, there’s twelve chapters of this resource, so we can do one chapter a week and I can do four sessions a year. Then after the first one I realized, oh my gosh, no, I need to take a break. It’s a heavy lift, because I have to share my story with the group to model how to share our stories. Then I feel my empathy for all of them, too. It just brings it all to the surface.

One woman was so sure she wasn’t going to tell her story in the group, she threw the storytelling resources away. Halfway through the course, she walked in one day and said, “I want to tell my story,” and she did. At the end of the course she told me, “I am confounded. I shared my story, and I feel so much better.” And I thought, that’s what keeps me coming back.

10/20/2023

Matt, Swanzey, financial advisor

A lot of the reason I changed my career path was my children and my wife, to give them options—primarily her having the option to be home with the kids, and them having the option to go to the Montessori School. How do we free up our time? Because that's really what's important. So I decided to make a career change, at 30, with babies. And then you struggle through all that means, right? The fear of not having a paycheck. But you survive, and you learn how to live on chicken and rice, and hopefully keep them from shutting the heat off.

And then you come through that and you're like, now everything's wonderful, we have all the money we need—I can buy my kid a drum set, I can take them to Disney. Then you reach a point where you realize that stuff is still just STUFF. What's really important is time together, those magic moments. You can't create those.

I mentioned Disney, right? It's Disney. Would I go again? Sure. But we've had times laughing together over dinner at Papagallo’s that were just as memorable. It doesn't have to be money spent on anything.

So you kind of make that more of a priority and you say, all right, let's spend a little less, let's be a little more thoughtful, let's remember what's really important.

When my oldest was 16, I said, “you've got a steady job, now we're gonna start investing. You're gonna put away 50 bucks a month.” And I showed her, if you invest $50 a month starting when you’re just 16, in 50 years when you're 66, with a good average annual return, you'll have something like 1.2 million. There you go. You just put yourself on the path to being a millionaire.

I think this is really important. I know I'm helping people every day. There's way more work to do than will ever be done—so that gives me enthusiasm each day to go back to work, to say, there's more to be done, there's more to be done.

10/05/2023

Lisa
Administrative assistant
Jaffrey

I remember when I found out David was using he**in. I was embarrassed, because he was just a mess—at that point, they don’t care about whether they take a shower or whether they do anything. The good thing was seeing him get through recovery and look healthy again—he seemed to be happy, it seemed like it went full circle. So I still have that question—what happened, what went wrong?

I always tell people that my life after January 31, 2021 will never be the same. It’s very hard to explain, but it just changes you—sometimes I feel like there’s two of me. You get up in the morning, you go to work, you’re professional. But I just feel—honestly, I feel empty. I feel like I’ve been robbed.

I know if David could talk, he would say, “Mom, stop doing this, stop hurting, I’m OK, you need to move on with your life.”

But how do you really start over?

He had a very big heart, and sometimes I wonder if that was also part of it. My father lived with us as he was getting older, and every night, whether David was high or whether he was sober, he would always go over and kiss my dad on the forehead and say, I love you, Grandpa.

I never thought it would be me. You watch the news, and you hear about things like this, and I always remember thinking, “oh, that poor mother and father, that poor husband or wife,” and then lo and behold, I became the person that I felt bad for.

It definitely opened my eyes to how I interact with patients at work. We take care of pregnant moms who had issues and are in recovery, and it does help me to look at them differently, because you’re happy to hear that they are recovering and they are going to have a baby, and you want to encourage that. There have been a couple of people that I’ve actually shared David‘s experience with, and I have said to these patients, I’m proud of you, good job.

The more knowledge you have about addiction, the more you know how it can change and affect life, the more compassion you can have for someone and say, I’d like to help you, if that’s what you want—I’d like to be able to help you.

I know I can’t offer much, but sometimes it’s just taking the time to sit with somebody and talk to them, let them know they do matter. One of David’s biggest things was he felt like he was never enough. They ARE enough, and they’re worth fighting for. I’m not a social worker, I don’t know any of that, but sometimes I think just letting someone know you’re there and that you care about them, that can make all the difference.

01/17/2023

Lisa, Keene
Case manager at Cheshire County treatment court

I always wanted to be in the criminal justice field, I wanted to be a probation officer. Life kind of got in the way. But I ended up getting a job at drug court—sorry, treatment court, they just changed the name—and I just love it. I love the whole aspect of giving people second chances. People that would normally go back to prison, giving them a chance to redo everything and have a life. Even the people that don't graduate from the program, they learn something from it.

Basically, I work as a tool to help our participants maneuver life. If they need to get housing or just learn coping skills, that kind of thing. I've got to re-emphasize what treatment is doing with them, and they in turn try to go live in the real world and figure things out. But I also am a reporter to the court. So if they meander a little, if they use, then I have to report the facts. But it's hopefully giving them the tools to be able to succeed in life.

Sometimes when they first come in they have a different take, “drug court is out to get me,” that kind of thing. But then they start realizing, these people are here to help, and then they move to another phase and they feel like, oh my God, this is really helping me. I got a job now, I got an apartment. It’s really good to see.

Finding sober living in this area is a huge part. We don't have it right now. It's like you're setting them up to fail. They go to treatment, and then they come back to nothing. Sometimes people get sanctions and they have to go to jail. That's my least favorite part. The way they've lived their life—it's hard, it doesn't change overnight, it’s a long-term kind of thing. Every person is different and every situation is different.

I love my job. I love the whole idea of it. I don't think enough people know about it—I’d never heard of treatment court until I started working for it. But it's out there, it's nationwide. Come to court on Tuesdays and check it out. It's open court, you can see what it's all about.

You could be living next door to somebody and you don't even realize, but they're wanting a good life too, and sometimes people don't see them, just the tattoos on their face or whatever, and they judge people like that. I wish people wouldn't judge this program, because it really is remarkable.

For me, a big thing is just being careful with how I interact. Sometimes you could say the wrong thing and have a different outcome, so I have to be really careful how I present things if I want it to be a teachable moment. I just want to be able to help them and be a tool for them.

12/22/2022

Robert, Nashua
Veteran and community health worker

I started off as a corpsman in the Navy. I worked with Marines. Back then it was individuals like, “Hey, Doc, can you check this out? I have this weird thing that's growing here, can you tell me what it is?” And then here in the Public Health Department, we have people that call like, “look, I have this issue and I don't know what to do. Can you point me in the right direction?” So I fell right into same boat. It’s great.

What I love most about my job is the people—I really love interacting with individuals. I love when we can provide something that they need. So it's a difficult process. But I love doing it, you know, just out of heart.

I wouldn't say there’s anything negative about my job, because I say that difficult situations are opportunities. We really try to reduce stigma in the community. A lot of different cultures have trouble talking about sexual wellness. In the Hispanic community, for example, it'll be difficult for a son or a daughter to talk to their parents about the relationships that they have. And God forbid that they were exposed and they have symptoms—they're gonna feel like they're dirty. So they might have that barrier to talk to their parents. So, educating parents and educating the children as well: this is a conversation that we should have, and it might be difficult to have this conversation, but it's good to address it and make your kids or your parents feel comfortable to have that conversation. Because it's all about wellbeing and prevention.

I did have an extended family member that passed away from drug overdose. And for the family, it was a very difficult situation to take in. So the conversation was not around drugs, it wasn't around overdose—it was just around one of the the co-morbidities that he had. I think it was the stigma that there is around drugs and how it could look. The parents don't want to appear like that to society. You know?

Being a dad, and also hearing from other dads in the community, they felt like they needed a little bit more support. So we created a fatherhood group, so that we can give help, empower them to get information, resources in the community, and then provide peer support. So we talk about healthy communication. We talk about our experiences, and we exchange perspectives and help each other out to become better fathers in the community.

Right now, what's really sparking me is the fatherhood group, that really gets me glowing. I say this all the time: I feel like I'm not working. It feels comfortable to work in public health.

12/13/2022

Pat, Antrim
Teacher

What's really interesting about me being a teacher is that I hated school growing up. That was the furthest thing from my thoughts, that I'd ever want to be a teacher. I was more interested in recess and whatever sport I could play, and whatever club I could join, but not academics.

In college I was strictly a C student, didn't care, smoked pot and drank. I graduated, got a waitressing job, had children. My husband had a good job, until he didn’t. So my kids were like three and six, I was totally stressed out, I mean, not sleeping, not eating, really anxious. And I'm in the grocery store, and I run into a friend. Hi, how are you? I'm not good at all! My husband lost his job, we don't have insurance, I think we're gonna have to sell the house. She says, well, I'm working at the school, and they really need people. Come over, you'll get insurance—and that was the ticket for me. Sure, I'll do this thing, because I'll have insurance, and that's my goal.

I started as an aide in the classroom, and their kids needed help with math. Next thing you know, my second year they're having me teach math class, and I'm like, oh, I really kind of like this. The next year I'm taking classes to get certified. And I'm a certified teacher after that.

I feel like I'm a very compassionate teacher because I got in it sideways. But it grew into my passion. So the first three years that I was there, I mostly helped kids who had learning disabilities to learn math. So I was teaching algebra and geometry, but at a slower pace for these kids. And then in subsequent years, I was just teaching regular math classes, but integrated, so we had everybody in there. And I just, I fell in love with these kids. I would go to the basketball games with them. I would go to the clubs. I would become, you know, sponsors of their clubs, so they could stay after school and mostly just have fun and chat.

So I got in it for a silly reason, that I needed insurance, but I wouldn't have been able to stay a teacher for 24 years for that reason. I fell in love with it after. And I feel like I had more compassion for the kids because I could identify with them, because I was not a student. I knew what it felt like to not care. I knew what it felt like to want to be doing everything else. I was a sucky student. Right? I want to be on the softball team, you know? I want to go play volleyball, I want to go play tennis. I wasn’t teacher material. Which I think made me a better teacher.

12/07/2022

Ed, Peterborough
Firefighter and fire department chief

I wound up in Peterborough sort of through happenstance. I joined the Fire Service in 1982 while at the University of Maine. We had a knucklehead lighting fire in our dorm the first few days of school, so this guy named Jon came out and did a fire safety presentation to try to get all of us to realize how dangerous that was. Part of the presentation was an invitation to join the department and I'm like, this seems kind of fun.

I joined my hometown fire department out of college and spent 23 years there, and then I moved on to become the director of the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy. Fast forward to 2013, I'm tired of working at the Fire Academy and want to get back into municipal fire service. That same guy Jon, who I'm still friends with, is on the Peterborough fire department and sends me the posting for this position. I've been chief here now for eight and a half years.

When I first started here, we had one ambulance staffed during the day and only half an ambulance staffed at night—one person was here, and one person was coming in from home. You build capacity and then sort of keep continuous leapfrogging to the point that now we have two ambulances on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

I joined the fire service 40 years ago, in September of 82. I've been a firefighter for 40 years now and an EMT for 38 years. And a lot has changed. We didn't wear rubber gloves when I first got in and we rode on the back of our trucks going to calls.

Another thing that has been really interesting is the extent of the mental health concerns now. I’ve experienced more deaths by su***de or attempted su***des in the past eight years here than I experienced in 20-plus years in my previous department. I'm a NAMI instructor now for the su***de prevention program. We’re looking at the whole mental health issue and how all of that relates, whether it’s directly related to substance misuse problems, or to the inability to have stable employment or stable housing. I mean, our town has got the well-to-do, and we've got people that couch surf because they're homeless. And the couch surfing people are working, they hold jobs, they're not sleeping on the street corner, and their kids go to school, but guess what, they don't have permanent housing that's theirs. All these things tie back together.

One thing that I really enjoy about the people that work here is, I think everybody is here for the right reasons. All my EMS providers and firefighters are here because they want to do a good job and help. I've never had any patients or anybody coming back to me and saying, “Hey, I've got a problem with the way I was treated.” It's dozens of times when people have said, “Oh my God, you people have gone out of your way.” It’s an incredibly supportive community.

12/01/2022

Pierre, Rindge
Chief Diversity Officer at Franklin Pierce University

I've been at the University for a little over three years. And the work is more than a role. First of all, I'm constantly learning, right? I'm constantly challenging myself to understand my own prejudices. To understand not only how I operate through this world, but how others operate, so that we can be a bit more kind, a bit more empathetic towards the lived experiences of others.

I think my job is probably one of the least understood roles in higher education. But in a lot of respects it’s the role that has the most bottom line impact, not just on finances—how many students feel safe enough in this environment to continue—but beyond, so hopefully we'll have our students and faculty and staff learn skills, interpersonal skills, like how to believe people when they tell you they've experienced something, or how to have difficult conversations or identify barriers. Collaboration is the foundation of this work. Creating and maintaining effective relationships is the primary pillar. And being willing to listen and move with strategic intention is the requisite skill set.

But honestly, I really believe it starts with with you understanding yourself and being kind and forgiving of yourself. If you have difficulty accepting yourself, it’s so much harder to be inclusive of others, their ideas and their experiences.

I think I got into this work because of my dad. He was an activist. I was hired at the university the month he died. He was from Phoenix, and he had a small-business incubation company, so he wrote grants for small businesses, and he worked with inner city youth, teaching them computer skills, how to write resumes, how to behave in a job interview. So that started me in career development.

Then my grandmother, his mom, had a restaurant called Sojourners—Sojourner Truth, right? She had books on the African diaspora, and I would read her books and we would talk about them. That's what gave me the love of understanding ethnicity and my place in the world. How the world sees people who look like me.

My other grandmother on my mom's side is Vietnamese, and I saw her struggle here when she came over from Vietnam. She couldn’t pronounce English words. I saw her get embarrassed in public so many times, and I saw what it did to her.

So that's who I am, and I don't have a lot of answers, but I'm willing to look for them. I guess I got into this work sort of naturally. I've been in career development for many, many years.

My big wish is that I would no longer be needed in this role. And I know that sounds trite. But what I mean is that we've come to a place where everyone's involvement is needed, is valued, is part of our culture. Whatever your identity is, whatever you call yourself, you have something to offer, and I want you to be engaged. To me, that's the only way you're going to make progress in really changing university life or the world. The more people that are engaged, the better chances you have of moving everyone forward towards a more full expression of humanity.

11/22/2022

Greg, Peterborough
Teacher

So I’m in my 13th year at Conval, but my 16th year of teaching. I have taught economics, I’ve taught government, I’ve taught world history, but psychology is my favorite. I became fascinated with the field of psychology as an adult, just caring about other people and how people behave and think and act. I’ve always been a student of human nature, but I didn’t have any words to describe it. So on my own, just for fun, I started to study neuroscience, and I took some courses and I loved it.

I think what I like about teaching psychology is what I like about teaching, which is the ability to make connections with kids and develop relationships. Because ultimately, I could have a lot of knowledge about something, but that doesn’t really matter.

When I became a teacher, I thought it was about content, I thought it was being able to teach kids about the topic. I was so busy, so hurried. I don’t know why I felt so much pressure—maybe because I wasn’t that good of a teacher. I would come into a classroom and have to spend most of my time lecturing and delivering content, rather than giving the students opportunities to learn on their own. At some point you have to figure out how to fall back and do the work behind the scenes, so that when I go into the class I can just say, “here’s your assignment.”

Because the great teachers build really important relationships with their students.

Then the students begin to ask different kinds of questions. Like, instead of, “what do I have to do,” they start asking, “where can I learn more, what does this mean,” or they start making connections themselves. I think that idea of getting kids to ask better questions, deeper questions that are meaningful to them, is really what I hope to accomplish as a teacher.

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