Barb Pecor chats with a customer while ringing up their purchases at Listen Community Services' thrift store in Canaan, N.H., on Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022. Pecor started working for the organization in the mid-'90s and currently manages the Canaan store. ( Valley News - Jennifer Hauck) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com. Valley News — Jennifer Hauck

Listen administrators, employees, guests and shoppers cheer after Laurel Stavis, chair of the board of directors, cut the ribbon to officially open the new Listen Thrift Store on the Miracle Mile in Lebanon, N.H., on Oct. 5, 2018. The 34,000 square-foot building consolidates inventory from the downtown Lebanon store and the White River Junction furniture store and centralizes donations to one location. (Valley News - Geoff Hansen) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com. Valley News file photograph — Geoff Hansen

Sonya Vinton, left, and Ruth Emery laugh as they sort through bins of clothing at the Listen donation center on Miracle Mile in Lebanon, N.H., on Thursday, August 18, 2022. Emery has been working for Listen off and on since she was a teenager and says the camaraderie is part of what keeps her coming back. (Valley News / Report For America - Alex Driehaus) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com. Valley News / Report For America — Alex Driehaus

Hilde Ojibway, of Wilder, laughs while listening to Merilynn Bourne, of Cornish, tell a story at the Listen Thrift Store in Canaan, N.H., on Dec. 2, 2013. Ojibway, who hired Bourne in 1996 to direct Listen's retail operations, was coincidentally shopping for gifts while Bourne was visiting employees in the store. (Valley News - Geoff Hansen) Hilde Ojibway, of Wilder, laughs while listening to Merilynn Bourne, of Cornish, tell a story at the Listen Thrift Store in Canaan last week. Ojibway, who hired Bourne in 1996 to direct Listen’s retail operations, was coincidentally shopping for gifts while Bourne was visiting employees in the store. Valley News photographs — Geoff Hansen Valley News file photograph — Geoff Hansen

Clifton Below, left, and Kathryn Petuck at the Listen Community Services administrative building and food pantry in Lebanon, N.H., on Friday, August 19, 2022. Below and Petuck, who have been married for 33 years, met at Listen in the early 1980s when she was a thrift store manager and assistant director and he was on the board of directors. (Valley News / Report For America - Alex Driehaus) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com. Alex Driehaus

LEBANON — When Barb Pecor arrived in the Upper Valley in the 1990s, she was homeless.

“Me and my husband were living in our car with our son,” she said.

When the family visited a food pantry run by the longtime Upper Valley nonprofit organization Listen Community Services, she saw a help wanted sign for an associate at the Lebanon thrift store.

“It was a stepping stone,” Pecor said of the job she started in 1995.

At $5.10 an hour (about $10 in today’s dollars), she didn’t see it becoming a long-term gig: “But then week after week, I just enjoyed it so much I stayed.”

Pecor, currently manager of the Canaan thrift store, has now worked for Listen for 27 years and is one of its longest-serving employees.

Her husband, Ray Pecor, went on to run Listen’s food program and community dinners for 17 years, becoming such a beloved figure along the way that even years after his retirement, he’s still recognized while he’s out in the community.

“It’s been good to me and my husband,” Pecor said of Listen. “It’s been our life.”

The Pecors, in many ways, demonstrate what Listen does best: give people a leg up so they can regain stability in their lives. As the organization celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, its leaders — past and present — have been reflecting on its founding as a grassroots group dedicated to affordable housing in Lebanon.

“Listen was founded out of this need to really protect residents, low-income residents in particular, from sort of poor tenant-landlord relationships,” said Kyle Fisher, who has served as executive director since 2016. “A lot of those issues still exist and Listen’s mission hasn’t strayed very far at all from where we were at the beginning and what people really need us to be for them, which is bridging the gap in their income to make it in this area.”

If anything, the housing and affordability crisis in the Upper Valley has only gotten more dire as the COVID-19 pandemic further highlighted the area’s income inequality and inflation pushed some families who were barely making ends meet to contact Listen for services for the first time. Last year, the organization served nearly 2,400 Upper Valley households.

As Listen works on its strategic plan, staff and board members are talking about expanding its advocacy work beyond the Upper Valley — visiting the Statehouse to talk to lawmakers “so that we can make systemic changes and protections for the folks that benefit from our services,” Fisher said.

Listen was born from the 1964 fire that decimated and eventually remade downtown Lebanon. But in 1972, the city had failed to fulfill its obligations tied to federal funding that was supposed to help rebuild downtown, recalled Bill Weismann, one of the nonprofit organization’s founding members. One of the conditions had required Lebanon to build affordable housing for older adults and families. While the newly created Lebanon Housing Authority had fulfilled its obligations for seniors, it had yet to build affordable housing for families.

Eight years after the fire, residents were fed up. A group of mothers affiliated with Follow Through, a federal program associated with early Head Start that grew from Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty, started to think about how lack of affordable housing impacted children and their families.

“The first and foremost impetus was around housing,” Weismann said. “It was important for there to be an independent voice for low-income people in that housing struggle that would be independent of the Head Start education program.”

After advocates helped convince the city to build what ultimately would become Romano Circle in West Lebanon, Listen turned its attention to social services that would help residents stay in their homes..

At the time, Tri County CAP, the nearest community action agency formed during the Johnson administration, was based in Berlin, N.H., with an office in Littleton.

“There was nothing in Lebanon,” Weismann said, other than some church groups trying to fill the void. “There was no place where people could just go and know that a basic need like food, or furniture or clothing could be acquired.”

While residents were generally supportive of Listen’s early efforts, city officials preferred to pretend the problem of poor housing stock didn’t exist, Weismann said.

“There was a lot of, at best, skepticism and at worst, hostility to the initial role that Listen was , especially around housing,” he said. “You put the light of day on an issue like substandard housing and it’s very difficult for city officials to ignore it.”

Marcia Boutin emerged as the leader of what was first known as Lebanon in Service to Every Neighbor, now better known by its acronym, Listen. Boutin, who died in 2010, established the organization’s thrift store model, which is a major source of revenue to this day. She would drive around in a station wagon picking up goods and convinced business owners to contribute. Broken electronic devices were fixed by volunteers and a community garden was started to give people with produce. Kids were provided with school supplies and clothing. Residents who risked having utilities shut off because they couldn’t pay for it had a group to ask for help.

Listen found a permanent base on Hanover Street in 1976, near Sacred Heart Church. The move beyond a hot-button issue such as housing advocacy to social services had solidified its place in the city.

“I think it became hard for people to criticize Listen, especially if you didn’t agree with housing advocacy, because you’re criticizing an organization that is feeding people, that is collecting donations and making sure people have a bed or a washing machine or decent clothes,” Weismann said. “You had to taper down your criticism because this was an organization that was incredibly popular with what role it was playing in the community.”

Among the early volunteers was Ruth Emery, who met Boutin when she was 16 while walking home from school with her siblings in the few years after Listen was founded.

“Right away we were intrigued by her,” Emery said.

She started volunteering for Listen and then got a job there. Sometimes, Emery would attend meetings with Boutin and watch as she pressed city officials on housing issues.

“I didn’t understand any of it,” said Emery, who currently works in the Listen warehouse at its department store on Miracle Mile. “She instilled passion. She made you care about things. When you’re 16, 17 years old, you’re kind of doing your own thing. She made me care. I had always been kind of a quiet person. She got me out of that. She got me to speak.”

Clifton Below started interning at Listen in 1977 as part of a Dartmouth College program. He enjoyed the work so much — and was learning so much — he dropped out of school to devote himself full time, joining the board in 1978.

“I felt like there was a lot to learn in the community that I wasn’t getting in coursework at Dartmouth,” said Below, who ended up becoming a leading energy advocate in New Hampshire, served as a state legislator and is currently a member of Lebanon’s City Council. “Human services were not as developed or comprehensive back then. This was early. They were filling gaps that nobody else was touching at the time.”

Although it started in Lebanon, Listen didn’t keep to the city for long. It opened thrift stores in White River Junction in 1980 and in Canaan five years later.

There were growing pains. Boutin was forced out of her position in 1978, and Listen cycled through three executive directors in four years. The political advocacy arm of the group split off into a separate organization called United Citizens Action Network, known as UCAN.

In 1987, the board hired Hilde Ojibway as its seventh executive director.

Among the first orders that Ojibway, then 30, was tasked with was to create a smoking policy as mandated by the state of New Hampshire. At the time, employees could smoke freely and Ojibway created designated smoking areas.

“That issue was very emotional for people,” Ojibway recalled. “I think it was a good representation of how the organization evolved. It became more structured ... and I would argue that structure was healthier for the organization and the individuals served, but it wasn’t so hard that there wasn’t some opportunity for flexibility.”

During her tenure, Ojibway began to reach out to other organizations throughout the region. In the early 1990s, leaders gathered to discuss the top needs and one was affordable child care, particularly in the summer months. Listen already had a partnership with the Salvation Army that raised money to send kids to summer camp, but at the time only around 25 kids per year benefited from it. After talking with other community groups, they expanded the program and within three years it had grown to 350 kids.

“It was unbelievably successful ...,” said Ojibway, who served as executive director until 1997. “No. 1, we identified a real significant need in the community, and No. 2, the community members were willing to step up.”

Kathy Petuck started as the thrift store manager in 1980 when she was 25 and was tasked with organizing the thrift store. The year before she took over it had earned $3,000. After her first year, it had generated $30,000. By the time she left in 1984, there were three stores bringing in $100,000.

“When I started, we started labeling everything and had a big price list,” Petuck recalled in an interview alongside her husband, Below, who she met at Listen. “We got a lot more donations coming in.”

During the 1980s, the stores’ familiar color price tag system was implemented so employees could track how long items were on the floor and figure out when to put them on sale for half off or 10 cents. Profits began to increase and so did the amount of Listen’s budget that the thrift stores funded.

“It gives you so much freedom and flexibility,” Ojibway said of the money the stores bring in.

Listen is unique among nonprofit organizations in that it seldom takes federal funding. That has allowed leaders to move money where it is needed without being beholden to spending restrictions.

“You don’t have to ask permission. You don’t have to follow guidelines that aren’t realistic,” said Merilynn Bourne, who started as Listen’s retail director in 1996 before becoming executive director from 2001 to 2016. “You can actually just do the service and see the results immediately.”

Traditionally, retail sales made up 85% of Listen’s program budget, said Fisher, the current executive director. Most recently, that’s dropped to 23% as Listen programs have expanded and wages and benefits for employees have grown. The rest of the funding comes from direct donations and grants.

“I believe in practicing what we preach,” Fisher said. “We’ve pushed forward hard on raising folks’ wages here at Listen and providing them with a benefits package that is generous and sets them up for success and allows them to live in the communities that they work, which I think is very important as a value.”

In fiscal year 1997, revenues from thrift stores, donations and grants were $822,995; in 2002 $1.25 million; in 2012, $1.96 million and in 2022 $6.04 million.

During Bourne’s tenure, the organization purchased the property in White River Junction to build what is now known as the Bourne Center. In addition to housing a thrift store, it is better known as the home base for six-days-per-week community dinners. Prior to its building, the dinners rotated between various churches in the Upper Valley.

“That was a major, major transformation for us,” said Laurel Stavis, a former leader of Listen’s board who is a New Hampshire state representative. “Now we had our own kitchen and our own dining area, which made it much easier for our clients and our guests and much easier for us to buy food in bulk and store it.”

In 1997, Listen had 36 employees. As of this June, it has 75. Much of that growth can be attributed to the opening of the Miracle Mile thrift store in 2018.

“We estimate that a little more than a third of our team have come to us as clients and have ended up making a career at Listen,” Fisher said. “I think this is absolutely part of the Listen story and mission, is giving people who have fallen down on hard times or whatever it might be, an avenue to succeed.”

One principle Listen has held steadfast throughout its 50 years is the importance of lived experiences and welcoming people, particularly those just starting out, with an interest in social services, no matter their academic background.

“Whoever is going to be working inside that environment needs to be passionate, needs to have common sense, needs to be able to read people well,” said Bourne, who herself does not have a college degree. “It’s really people skills I was looking for. If you have people skills, we could teach you the job.”

And that’s what Listen has been about from the start.

Throughout her years with the organization, Pecor, the Canaan store manager, has developed relationships with customers. They stop by to tell her about deaths in their families or about the troubles in their lives. She’s helped connect people with other services they need.

“It’s made me a lot better person,” said Pecor, whose daughter now works for Listen.

When she and family were selected to receive a house from Habitat for Humanity, it was Listen employees who helped them build it.

“I was homeless and I needed friends, and boy did I get some,” she said. “They’ll be my friends for life.”

That includes Emery, who Pecor’s children call Aunt Ruthie. That desire to do good that Boutin introduced her to as a teenager, still persists today.

“I just remember caring passionately about the place and the people that I met along the way,” Emery said. “That’s the story: The people you meet along the way.”

Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.

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