Sunday Mornings at Nine
Pleasant Street United Methodist Church gathers for worship on Sunday mornings at 9 AM. Worship is held in person at the church and is also livestreamed on the church's YouTube Channel, with an archive of past services available for those who want to revisit a message or catch up after a missed Sunday.
The church sits at 8 Pleasant Street, a quiet side street a short walk from the center of Salem, New Hampshire. Visitors can call 603-898-2501 or email psumcnh@gmail.com to reach the office before their first visit.
From a Pledged Lot in 1861 to a Modern Campus
The congregation's story begins in the spring of 1861, when Isaac Emerson proposed building a church edifice and donated a suitable lot of land. The idea caught on quickly: within a day or two, the community had pledged about $2,000 toward the project. The building was completed on June 28, 1862 and dedicated to the worship of God on July 1, 1862, as recorded in the Salem town history 200th Anniversary, 1750 - 1950.
More than 150 years later, the church completed The HOPE Center in March 2015, giving its growing outreach ministries a modern home on the same Pleasant Street site.
The HOPE Center: A Hub for Outreach
The entire rear of the building is dedicated to organizing and storing food pantry supplies. The front holds the church office and two meeting rooms available for community use, each with a small kitchen, a digital TV screen, and a sound system.
The Tenney Memorial room on the first floor hosts a Sabbath Service and the WIC program's Healthy Kids. The larger upstairs meeting room serves as an emergency shelter for up to six people. Back-up generators keep the whole building running, so the HOPE Center can function as a warming shelter or cooling shelter when weather turns dangerous.
Outreach programs based at the HOPE Center include Food for the Hungry, Cooking Matters for Families, a Twelve Step program, an emergency shelter, and Isaiah 58.
Food for the Hungry: Hunger Knows No Season
The Food for the Hungry pantry is open the first and third Wednesday of each month from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM, offering curbside contactless service. Founded in the late 1970s by Oliver Eacker and carried forward by Gretarose Barnes, Cliff Cleary, and Kay Panciocco, the pantry serves Salem residents who need help putting food on the table.
Volunteer Gretarose has said, "No one should be ashamed to ask for food." Volunteers greet neighbors with smiles, recipe ideas, and referrals to programs like SNAP and fuel assistance. Most of the food is purchased through the New Hampshire Food Bank in Manchester with charitable donations. The pantry also partners with mail carriers for the May Post Office Food Drive and with the Boy Scouts for the November Food Drive, and receives Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys through the Turkey Golf Day at Campbell's Scottish Highland Golf Course. Checks made out to "Food for the Hungry" can be mailed to the church at 8 Pleasant Street, Salem, NH 03079.
Pastoral and Ministry Team
Rev. Shannon D. Keeney serves as Senior Pastor. April Bond and Rebecca Sanborn are Ministers in Training, and Ken Lam is the church organist.