Matty Gregg’s story started with a movie and a bet.

The 1983 film, The Terry Fox Story, chronicled 22-year-old Canadian Terry Fox as he attempted to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research after he lost his right leg to osteosarcoma.

He watched the film with his father years ago and the two made a bet whether Gregg could run across the United States.

When he turned 40, he took on that challenge, running 5,425 miles across America raising money and attention for the cancer risk for firefighters.

Now, he’s taking on a new message – and a shorter challenge – by running the 230-mile length of New Hampshire from Nashua to Pittsburg to end hunger.

It’s a cause he took on in honor of the late state Rep. Art Ellison, a Concord Democrat whose dying wish was to “feed the damn kids.”

Gregg’s run, which kicked off Thursday involves eight days of marathon mileage (and then some) and is paired with events to start a state-wide conversation about ending food insecurity with the organization New Hampshire Hunger Solutions.

In Manchester, policymakers looked ahead to the 2025 legislative session. At a stop in Canterbury, the discussion centered on a new farm-to-school bill and using Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits at farms and farmer’s markets.

In North Conway, Hannaford officials will talk about ways the grocery store can lend the community a hand. And in Berlin, an event at White Mountain Community College will focus on student hunger.

“I can’t believe we live in a world where we’re still struggling with how to do this. We are the richest country in the world. We have the most resources for people. There’s got to be a way that we can figure out as a community, to feed kids lunch at school,” Gregg said. “This shouldn’t be a problem in 2024.”

Motiviation

To kick off the first day of the mission, Gregg woke with the sun and put on his neon green shorts and a black “The NH Hunger Run” t-shirt.

By 10 a.m., he was running one-mile between Mount Pleasant Elementary School and Greeley Park in Nashua with 50 students, and a fire truck escort.

“It was overwhelming, a little bit emotional,” he said. “There was a great community surrounding, trying to raise awareness for this problem.”

Not to mention, Gregg is a Nashua native.

His childhood was marked by racing his dad around the track at Nashua High School. He remembers sitting at lunch with classmates who often skipped the midday meal.

“My best friend actually didn’t eat lunch often because I think his family was struggling with paying the lunch bills for hot lunch,” he said. “A lot of my friends struggled with that, being able to pay for that and their families didn’t have the means to cover that as a meal. So this has been a problem for a long time in New Hampshire.”

The immediate focus on ending hunger, though, came this spring after legislators in the New Hampshire House voted down a bill to increase eligibility for free and reduced lunch by one vote, with Republican Speaker Sherm Packard casting the tiebreaker. Gregg’s wife, Alicia, is a Democratic state representative from Nashua.

That morning in April, the House honored Ellison, who had passed while serving at the age of 80. His family sat in the gallery for the memorial and stayed for the vote. Ellison declared it his dying wish to eliminate child hunger in the state.

Gregg watched the ordeal unfold online – first, the news that Ellison’s bill had failed. Next, he saw a series of posts from representatives about a free lunch for elected officials.

“The awareness that I realized I had to bring to this cause was not only awareness inside the arena but also awareness inside of New Hampshire, across New Hampshire,” he said. “I know these runs can do that.”

System changes

As school meal debt rises across the state and districts debate how to address the issue, Jessica Gorhan can’t help but think that it’s all preventable.

If all eligible families were properly enrolled in free and reduced lunch programs, fewer students would receive bills for unpaid lunches.

“School meal debt is an issue of something happening because we didn’t put preventative measures in place to help kids get connected to the free and reduced meals that they’re eligible for,” said Gorhan, the social impact and development director for New Hampshire Hunger Solutions, an advocacy group that works to provide food security in the state.

School meal programs have taken center stage in policy debates in the wake of the pandemic. For nearly two years, from 2020 through 2022, federal grants funded universal free meals.

When that program ended, eligibility guidelines and enrollment returned to state-by-state policies.

New Hampshire is the outlier among its New England neighbors, as Vermont, Maine and Massachusetts adopted universal free meal programs in their state laws.

But in the Granite State, enrollment for free and reduced lunch is restricted to families who make 185 percent of the federal poverty level, or $57,720 for a family of four.

Ellison’s ultimate hope was that the state would pass a universal program to provide free meals to all children regardless of income level. His bill that was narrowly defeated stopped short of that and instead attempted to incrementally expand the existing program. His bill would have nearly doubled eligibility – bringing it to 350 percent of the poverty level, meaning that children in families of four that earn less than $109,200 would receive free or reduced lunches at school.

Even for eligible students, enrollment in New Hampshire requires families to submit paperwork that is often sent home in a child’s backpack. Forms are often lost or never returned and only 46 percent of students who are eligible participate in the program, according to New Hampshire Hunger Solutions.

An immediate change would come from correcting these system failures, said Gorhan.

Currently, if a family is eligible for federal programs, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, is in foster care or experiencing homelessness, students are automatically certified for free school meals.

Expanding that automatic certification to include Medicaid enrollment would help close the gaps on eligibility, said Gorhan, allowing 8,000 more students to enroll.

“Those families would not have to fill out an application,” she said. “It’s just streamlining, reducing the administrative burden and helping more families that are eligible to participate.”

Rep. Laura Telerski, another Nashua Democrat, has filed a legislative service request for the 2025 session for direct Medicaid certification. She’s also introduced a bill requiring an online application for the meals program to be on every school district website.

“The goal of these bills is really just to ensure that no child falls through the cracks,” she said.

While retorts against school meal spending last session were centered on claims that there were no hungry children in the state, or that taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill, she hopes basic enrollment adjustments won’t lead to another tiebreak vote.

“I don’t understand how feeding kids has become partisan. It’s very sad,” she said. “This is about our neighbors, this is about our kids down the street. This is our kids at our neighborhood schools, and it’s about making sure that they can attend school and get an education to help them grow into being valuable members of our community.”

A day on the run

While Gregg laced up his shoes for the first leg of his 30-mile run, his wife Alicia started the car.

To complete his cross-state run, the two have a system. She drives ahead and stops every three miles, while Gregg follows the car. In it, he has food, water, gear – you name it – to complete his more-than-marathon that day.

“I basically just run to see her smiling face,” he said. “And once I see her smiling face, I then run an additional three miles, because she goes up three miles.”

To run his many miles a day requires endurance. In preparation, Gregg said he cross-trained with high-interval workouts.

On day three of 30-mile runs, his back hurts more than his legs.

“You’re going to struggle pretty badly when your back gives out,” he said. “You always have to train your lower back, your muscles, your core and your shoulders, too.”

Gregg’s list of ultra-endeavors is long – he’s tackled marathons, a 24-hour tough mudder and the cross-country feat. For each of these races, fundraising has fueled him, supporting Make-A-Wish, the Firefighter Cancer Support Network, St. Baldrick’s and others.

Gregg said he’s seen the success of his past races in bringing attention, and funding, to these causes.

With his hunger run, he hopes lawmakers are now thinking about bipartisan solutions to address child hunger, that there’s a greater focus on supporting food pantries and that a conversation is started statewide.

“It’s surprising that we’re not there yet,” he said. “But whatever we can do to help as a community.”
 

Michaela Towfighi can be reached at mtowfighi@cmonitor.com.