Deb Anthony, champion of feeding Seacoast and Women of the Year honoree: ‘Think big, always’

Deb Anthony is one of USA TODAY’s Women of the Year, a recognition of women who have made a significant impact in their communities and across the country. The program launched in 2022 as a continuation of Women of the Century, which commemorated the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote. Meet this year’s honorees at womenoftheyear.usatoday.com.

When Deb Anthony arrived in 2014, Seacoast Family Food Pantry was a $250,000 a year nonprofit that had changed little since its founding in 1816.

In her eight years as executive director, Anthony transformed the organization and how its stakeholders think about food insecurity. The traditional food pantry rebranded as Gather, moved out of cramped quarters in Portsmouth City Hall to a larger space on West Road and formed extensive partnerships across New Hampshire's food chain. With the community’s support, the nonprofit's annual budget grew to $6 million, serving more than 7,000 people a month across 50 cities and towns in New Hampshire’s greater Seacoast region.

Then, in 2022, at the height of her success, recognizing the now larger organization needed more business-oriented leadership, Anthony announced her retirement from Gather, to a chorus of accolades from across the state.

In recognition of her work Anthony was chosen as USA TODAY's Women of the Year honoree from New Hampshire.

Anthony, 64, is a New Hampshire native from North Hampton.

Her journey to Gather was circuitous. She worked for large nonprofits like Susan G. Komen for breast cancer research, and small nonprofits like Lovelane, a therapeutic riding outfit in Massachusetts. She spent three years at the Toberman Center in San Pedro, California, brokering peace deals between rival street gangs and fostering communication between the gangs and city police.

Upon arriving at Gather, Anthony quickly recognized that the organization needed to rethink its strategy and tactics from top to bottom.

She received early help from Portsmouth’s renowned restaurateurs, in particular Jay McSharry (Jumpin’ Jays Fish Café and others), Peter Egelston (Portsmouth Brewery) and Michael Landgarten (Bob’s Clam Hut), who had been working for years through Share Our Strength-Seacoast, a nonprofit dedicated to ending food insecurity.

The conversations led to the creation of simple recipe cards, cooking classes, the planting of community gardens and gift cards to farmers markets across the region.

Anthony is quick to downplay her contributions. She credits the board’s willingness to think differently, to embrace data to quantify the benefits of their efforts and to communicate those benefits to foundations and other funders. She credits the volunteers who not only put in time and effort but often became donors after getting firsthand experience feeding those in need.

Programs launched under Anthony’s leadership at Gather include Meals 4 Kids, which provides nutritious food to hungry children when school is closed during the summer and vacations. This program became critically important during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The need to feed families and children simply exploded, Anthony said.

In addition to the traditional pantry market at 210 West Road in Portsmouth, innovative programs at Gather included mobile markets, which brings fresh food to clients rather than forcing clients to come to the food; Cooking 4 Community, where volunteers take available ingredients and prepare meals; Grow 4 Gather, which gives residents the opportunity to share the surplus from their gardens; Farm Shares 4 Families, which purchases fruit, vegetables and other fresh food from local farms. A recent venture is Gather Café, which opened in the former Green Bean space at Great Bay Community College that Gather describes as its “first adventure into a self-sustaining revenue stream.”

Under Anthony, Gather also formed strong bonds with NH Gleans, which collects unharvested food from local farms that in turn get a tax deduction so, as the NH Gleans website states: “Nothing goes to waste and no one goes hungry.”

In a guest column paying tribute to Anthony upon her retirement, longtime Gather board president Scott McKee and Fill the Hall leader Denise Wheeler described Anthony as “a visionary.”

Toward the end of 2022, Anthony said she recognized that Gather "was getting bigger than me and it needed new leadership and I was ready to stop.”

While Anthony retired from Gather in September, she has already created a new nonprofit, the Maine Recovery Ranch at Los Solano, on 26 acres in North Berwick, Maine, where “we take naughty horses and make them better” and provide equine-assisted therapy for troubled youths and people in recovery. When she’s not working with people and horses, she is enjoying time with her husband Bob, their six children and seven grandchildren.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Who paved the way for you?

Veronica Wolfe paved the way for me. …. (She) ran an organization for people with disabilities. I was a job developer who went out to convince (businesses) to hire people with developmental disabilities and she was the classiest, funniest, toughest woman I'd ever worked for. I just loved her leadership style. The thing I took with me in all of my other work was she allowed you to be the leader you wanted to be but she didn’t allow you not to work. She wasn’t going to let you fail but she also wasn’t going to let you be less than your best.

What was your proudest moment?

My proudest moment was probably at Gather when we got our first mobiles on the road. It was just so game changing.

What is your definition of courage?

Doing what you believe, no matter what.

Is there a guiding principle or mantra that you tell yourself?

Think big, always.

Who did or do you look up to?

My father. I just loved everything about Earl Anthony. He was an airline pilot but his true love was pretending to be a farmer. And he was just good. He loved fiercely. He never missed a grandchild’s soccer game …. He would drive two hours to watch his grandchildren play hockey or whatever they were doing and he always just loved you unconditionally and everybody knew it.

How do you overcome adversity?

For me, overcoming adversity is looking for a new way. I don’t dwell on what’s wrong for very long. It just isn’t helpful. So, it’s just being able to reframe whatever is going on in your world and move forward.

What advice would you give your younger self?

My best advice would be to trust yourself. Believe in yourself. Because there’s so many times in this world where it’s easy not to believe in yourself. There’s so many fears, you know. ‘Am I doing this right?’ ‘Am I doing that wrong?’ ‘Do they like me?’ ‘Do they not like me?’ There’s a lot going on out there and trusting yourself is not always easy. I think age is a wonderful thing. I’m so much happier at 64 than I was at 34 because today, I’m me. I wasn’t at 34.

• 2022 Women of the Year: USA TODAY’s Women of the Year: Meet Claire Bloom, founder of End 68 Hours of Hunger

• Women of the Century: Jodi Picoult, Christa McAuliffe and Jeanne Shaheen among influential New Hampshire women

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Former Gather director Deb Anthony honored for work feeding Seacoast