This week marked another chapter in my love affair with New England with a trip to Keene, New Hampshire. My colleague Matthew and I traveled to Keene for a First Book Meet and Greet in celebration of our Food for the Body, Food for the Mind campaign with C&S Wholesale Grocers. The initiative will distribute 50,000 new books in southwestern New Hampshire by the end of 2008.

First Book-Keene State College hosted the Meet and Greet on campus and provided a wonderful spread of refreshments. It was standing room only as we told programs throughout the Monadnock region about how they could receive books from the initiative. (Matthew and I are secretly claiming that we held the best Meet and Greet ever!)

Earlier in the day, we walked around the quaint Keene community to visit some local programs and had wonderful tours of the Keene Public Library and the YMCA along the way. Everyone was so friendly and generous. We even received boxes of cookies at an impromptu stop at the Girls Scouts regional office!

Thank you Mary, Brie, Gina, Carol, Gail, Madeline and so many others for your wonderful hospitality and for the work you do every day serving children in need! Please view more photos from Keene.