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PantryPath Research · School Hunger Atlas

School hunger in New Hampshire

24% certified free/reduced

Across 499 public schools serving 165,282 students, 23.8% of New Hampshire students are certified free or reduced-price. 4 schools (1% of NSLP participants) operate under the Community Eligibility Provision, and 0.0% of students are directly certified through SNAP, TANF, or Medicaid linkage.

165K

Students enrolled

499

Public schools (CCD)

4

CEP / Provision 2 schools

10

Counties in atlas

New Hampshire by county

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Toggle between the school-food-access composite, free/reduced eligibility, CEP share, direct-certification rate, and SAIPE school-age poverty. Hover a county to see schools, enrollment, and the underlying certification mix.

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Lower
Higher

New Hampshire at a glance

Free/reduced

23.8%

Share of enrollment

CEP share

1%

Of NSLP schools

Direct cert

0.0%

SNAP/TANF/Medicaid

NSLP schools

87%

Serve NSLP meals

5–17 in poverty

7.8%

Census SAIPE 2023

Access score

0.30

Composite 0–1

The access score is a 0–1 composite weighted 50% eligibility, 30% CEP share, 20% NSLP share — a visualization and ranking aid, not a direct measurement. See methodology.

County-level hotspots

Top five counties across 10 in New Hampshire.

Highest free/reduced share

Certified ≤185% FPL per enrollment

  1. 1 Coos 43.3%
  2. 2 Sullivan 35.9%
  3. 3 Carroll 32.6%
  4. 4 Cheshire 31.8%
  5. 5 Belknap 30.4%

Highest CEP adoption

Of NSLP schools — min. 3 NSLP schools

  1. 1 Coos 10%
  2. 2 Sullivan 4%
  3. 3 Cheshire 3%
  4. 4 Belknap 0%
  5. 5 Carroll 0%

Largest enrollment

Total students in CCD universe

  1. 1 Hillsborough 53K
  2. 2 Rockingham 41K
  3. 3 Merrimack 17K
  4. 4 Strafford 14K
  5. 5 Grafton 10K

Every county in New Hampshire

All 10 counties with school counts, enrollment, certification mix, CEP adoption, and the SAIPE 5–17 poverty backdrop.

County Schools Enrollment Free/reduced CEP Direct cert 5–17 poverty Access
Belknap 23 7,525 30.4% 0% 0.0% 9.4% 0.34
Carroll 25 5,207 32.6% 0% 0.0% 11.0% 0.34
Cheshire 40 8,448 31.8% 3% 0.0% 9.8% 0.33
Coos 22 3,364 43.3% 10% 0.0% 16.5% 0.44
Grafton 50 10,103 24.8% 0% 0.0% 8.9% 0.29
Hillsborough 123 53,256 25.4% 0% 0.0% 7.6% 0.30
Merrimack 55 17,222 24.6% 0% 0.0% 7.7% 0.30
Rockingham 97 41,303 13.0% 0% 0.0% 5.0% 0.23
Strafford 38 14,249 27.2% 0% 0.0% 9.1% 0.33
Sullivan 26 4,605 35.9% 4% 0.0% 11.2% 0.37

New Hampshire school meals guide

How free and reduced-price school lunch eligibility works, application steps, and what to do if your child's school is not in CEP.

School meals guide

Summer meals

When the school year ends, NSLP and CEP stop. The Summer Food Service Program and Summer EBT fill the gap for the 39,264 children who rely on school meals in New Hampshire.

Summer meals guide

Families with children

SNAP, WIC, Head Start, and the full federal-program stack for households with kids — the assistance ecosystem around the school cafeteria.

Families guide

New Hampshire child poverty

The sibling atlas — county-level child poverty across New Hampshire. Free/reduced eligibility and child poverty track each other closely but not perfectly.

New Hampshire child poverty atlas

New Hampshire pantries

Verified food pantries, food banks, and meal programs across New Hampshire — open weeknights, weekends, and through the summer gap.

New Hampshire pantry directory

Methodology

How we aggregated NCES Common Core of Data school-level records to counties, proxied CEP from lunch_program == 2, and layered SAIPE school-age poverty — plus the access-score formula.

Full methodology