In the front window of Steele’s Stationers at 40 Main Street in Peterborough, a display featuring giant paper water bottles is catching people’s eyes.
The window display, created by Elizabeth Littles of Steele’s, is publicizing an ongoing water bottle drive for the ConVal chapter of End 68 Hours of Hunger.
The display also features a “thermometer” tracking how many water bottles have been collected. The goal is 225 water bottles in large and small sizes.
“We’re getting there,” Littles said Wednesday afternoon at Steele’s. “Our collection bin is really filling up, and people have just been amazing in wanting to help out. I haven’t counted for today, but we’ve made a lot of progress.”
The water bottle drive was organized by Linda Caracappa, one of the coordinators, along with Carol Cleary, of the ConVal’s End 68 Hours of Hunger program.
“In the spring, when End 68 Hours was doing wellness bags for the kids, Linda said they would like to do a collection of water bottles, so I said, ‘this is something I can do. I don’t have time to help fill the bags, but I can do this, ‘ ” Littles said. “It’s important for so many reasons. The schools all have water filing stations, and it’s great for the kids to be hydrating all day. Then there is the ‘cool’ factor—it’s cool to have a nice water bottle, and not everyone can afford it. We just want these kids to be able to fit in and have a water bottle like everyone else. And from an environmental point of view, of course, it is really important to not be using plastic bottles.”
End 68 Hours of Hunger is a national nonprofit organization that provides bags of groceries to students whose families are experiencing food insecurity. Each student enrolled in the program brings home a grocery bag for the weekend containing food for two breakfasts, two lunches and three dinners to ensure they don’t go hungry on the weekend when school meals are not provided.
According to Littles, about 225 children were enrolled in ConVal’s End Hours program at the end of the 2024-2025 school year.
“We are trying to get a water bottle for every child enrolled in the program, but we won’t know the exact numbers until school starts. We are thinking, because of the rising costs of groceries, that those numbers will definitely be going up this year,” Littles said.
Littles said the support for the drive has been very strong.
“We have had a lot of out-of-town visitors come in and see the drive and then come back and donate — people with no connection to the town,” Littles said.
Littles said two of her own high school-age staff saved money to purchase water bottles to donate to the program.
“One of them took on an extra work project just to be able to donate a bottle,” Littles said. “This project also teaches people about giving when you can.”
Steele’s does not sell water bottles, but Littles volunteered her shop as a drop-off point in town because it is so centrally located and the window gets high visibility.
“We have heard that Hubert’s is giving a discount to anyone who buys a bottle for the drive, and we are so grateful to them; they are very generous,” Littles said.
Steele’s and End 68 Hours of Hunger will also take cash donations for water bottles.
End 68 Hours of Hunger recommends YETI, Owala and Hydro Flask brands. 16-18 oz bottles are recommended for elementary school students and 24 oz. bottles are requested for middle and high school students.
Steele’s will be taking donations of new, re-usable water bottles through the end of August.
For more information go to end68hoursofhunger.org/our-work/.
Francie Von Mertens contributed to this article.