MANCHESTER, NH – Since its founding in 2024, Acts of Kindness (AoK) has distributed nearly 50,000 pounds of food, more than 11,000 basic necessity products, and has helped about 92 people in Manchester off the streets and into permanent and recovery housing.
AoK is a nonprofit assisting the unhoused and underserved in Manchester, connecting them to solutions and helping them toward stability and self-sufficiency. The operation is based from Elie’s hair salon in Downtown Manchester (Tia’s Salon U) run exclusively by volunteers, funded by donors, fundraisers, donations, and their own pockets.
“We are journey walkers,” Elie said. “We find you in your journey and then we walk you to where you want to be.”
The team connects with people through boots on the ground outreach in the community, helping connect them with services, get to rehab, get documents such as birth certificates and IDs. On Thursdays at 4:30, Elie’s salon transforms into a food pantry – AoK is a partner with the New Hampshire Food Bank – providing shelf stable items and as well as clothing donated from the Pass Along Project, family and friends, and other necessities.
As the mission has continued to expand, they have found themselves outgrowing the space of Elie’s salon, and are striving to create a “Safe Space” to operate from instead.
“Our biggest struggle is being able to have a solid space and funding to get them where they need to be,” said Aok Board Vice President Courtney O’Keefe Webster. “We can out of Tia’s salon, we can do some stuff out on the street corner, but that is our biggest struggle and barrier that we have found, is that we can’t expand to help as many people as we want to, in the way that we want to.”
On August 24, AoK is having their inaugural Charity Golf Tournament at Stonebridge Country Club in Goffstown to raise money to fund their mission and the first year of a lease for their Safe Space.
AoK started with a rainy night and a realization.
Elie had her hair salon in downtown Manchester for almost 10 years before she met Fadzai Gowo, who was unhoused and would spend time behind the building her salon is in.
“I would call myself a pretty intelligent person but I was just very not alert, not awake, not aware. I was blind. Which is sad because in this area, it’s really hard to be blind because you trip over humans,” Elie said.
“The first time I saw him he was bent over trying to do his bike and I was like there’s something about him. He’s just a beautiful soul,” Elie said of Gowo. “I just saw great energy coming off of him and I felt like we needed to connect. We needed to be friends, or that we’ve been friends before.”
She encountered him a few times when one night he asked how she was doing.
“I said ‘I’m great, how are you today?’” Elie said. “And he said, ‘I’m a little cold.’”
From then on, seeing Gowo was part of her regular routine, and as Elie describes it, they became best friends.
It was on a cold, rainy night that it clicked.
“It was 20 degrees and I woke up in the middle of the night at three in the morning and I was like, ‘Oh my god. They’re sleeping out there,’” Elie said. “I’m sitting there with my blankets and I’m cold here in the bed, and I think ‘They’re sleeping outside with a little blanket that I gave them.’ And that hurt my heart. I woke up and said ‘We’re going to do something.’”
In 2024, Elie formed a board and established Acts of Kindness as a 501c3. Some on the board have become Certified Recovery Support Workers, and are in the process of becoming Peer Support Workers. Beyond the six-person board, the team also consists of 32 volunteers.
“The cool part about that journey walking is that we find a lot of cracks in the way,” Webster said.
Such cracks they’ve encountered are people being court mandated to go to rehab, but not given a way to get there, or someone who is in treatment for addiction, but can’t afford to go to a sober living facility.
They have also faced barriers with the city’s zoning laws finding a location for the Safe Space.
Their vision for phase one of their Safe Space includes an open community room; a sanitation station with showers, toilets, and a laundry room; rooms for private peer support; a clothing closet, food pantry, storage area with lockers; a kitchen; and meeting room. They would eventually like to expand to offer some sort of housing or shelter component.
AoK’s motto is “consistently connecting with compassion”.
“What we found is that everyone’s all about tough love I think. But you still need to love people. People need to feel loved,” Elie said. “Because when they’re addicted they’re in the darkest moment of their lives. Complete darkness. If you talk to them they’ll tell you, it’s complete darkness and they don’t see a light. So we are the light that comes in and says, ‘What can we do to help you?”
–
Acts of Kindness’s charity golf tournament includes breakfast lunch, 50/50 raffle prizes, and more. Tickets can be purchased here.
Sponsorship opportunities are also available.
For more information on sponsorship, contact actsofkindnessnh@gmail.com