Homelessness looks different in rural communities. In fact, it often goes unseen and unacknowledged in places like the Monadnock Region.

Homelessness here doesn’t look like it does on TV or in the movies or your last trip to the city.

We hope you find it shocking to learn in our front-page story today about events planned for Hunger and Homelessness Week in Peterborough next month that 25 students in the ConVal School District are currently experiencing homelessness.

While we here at the Ledger-Transcript find it shocking, we don’t find it surprising. In our ongoing work covering the people and places of the region we often come into contact with those who cannot find a job that will pay their bills and/or an apartment that they can afford.

People also tell us about the ongoing work of feeding children in the region. The Peterborough Food Pantry serves 300 households (6,300 meals) a month, and End 68 Hours of Hunger sends home 140 to 180 bags of food home with children in our school district.

We hear from community members about being evicted with nowhere to go or about having to move in with relatives or even having to leave the area to find sustainable work and affordable housing. But very often these folks don’t want us to tell their stories in the newspaper, perhaps our of embarrassment, the stigma of hunger and homelessness or perhaps fear of retribution from a boss or landlord. So we hope as many people as possible who have faced these challenges in the past or presently participate in the planned Hunger and Homelessness Pop-Up Stories event next month. And you can tell your story anonymously.

Kudos to the folks at the Monadnock Area Transitional Shelter and Firelight Theatre Workshop for organizing this.

All submissions, recordings and readings will be listed anonymously. Stories can be submitted to hungerhomelessnesshope@gmail.com until Nov. 8.

The Pop-Up Stories event will run from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Peterborough Library on Nov. 15. A full listing of Hunger and Homelessness Week events, which run through Nov. 25, can be found at matsnh.org/hhaw/.