New Balance has two manufacturing plants and three retail outlets in Maine, including one in Oxford, seen in 2019. (Andree Kehn/Staff Photographer)

The New Balance Foundation, which is the charitable arm of New Balance Athletics, announced this month it issued grants to 14 nonprofit organizations in Maine totaling more than $1.4 million. The timing of the funding is especially significant, with many nonprofit organizations already seeing the effects of federal funding cuts.

New Balance and Maine have a long history, starting in 1981 when the Boston-based company purchased the former Medwed Footwear factory in Skowhegan. That’s the same year the New Balance Foundation was formed. It has since gifted more than $150 million to nonprofits in the U.S. and around the world. In 2024, New Balance donated $12 million to nonprofits.

New Balance is the only major athletic footwear maker with manufacturing plants in the United States, with two plants in Massachusetts, two in Maine and a new plant expected to begin operation soon in New Hampshire. The company employs more than 800 people in Maine at its two factories in Skowhegan and Norway, and its three retail outlets in Kittery, Oxford and Skowhegan.

Since 2008 the company has granted more than $15 million to local nonprofits across central Maine and the Norway area. The foundation donates strictly to 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations that support children and families with a focus on health, nutrition, education and physical activity.

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“Maine has been generous enough to host us over the years, and so it’s our obligation and our desire to give back to these communities for their kind of generous support of us,” explained Megan Bloch, the foundation’s director of global philanthropy. “It was this really firm belief that we had an opportunity to change the lives of children in these communities, and we would do it through long-term investments with high-performing, nonprofit organizations,” she added.

Among the recipients of grants this month is the Good Shepherd Food Bank, which has a 20-year history with New Balance. Good Shepherd is Maine’s largest hunger relief organization, distributing nearly 40 million meals in 2024. Good Shepherd was blindsided earlier this year when the U.S. Department of Agriculture terminated $1.25 million for the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program in Maine and deeply cut funding in two other programs.

The Good Shepherd Food Bank in Auburn distributed nearly 40 million meals in Maine in 2024. (Christopher Wheelock/Staff Writer)

Robin McCarthy, Good Shepherd Food Bank’s chief advancement officer, said the funding is just gone.

“That’s money that would have gone to Maine farms so that they could grow food that would go directly to Maine’s food pantries, and that program has been discontinued entirely,” she told the Sun Journal last week.

The other major cut affecting food pantries across Maine is the Emergency Food Assistance Program. “That program is a USDA program where American grown and produced food is distributed through the Charitable Food Network, and that program makes up about 20% of the food bank’s overall distribution,” McCarthy said, adding “that program was cut by half.” Good Shepherd says that translates into the loss of about 250,000 pounds of food each month.

Produce ready to be loaded on a truck at the Good Shepherd Food Bank distribution center on Aug. 30, 2022.(Christopher Wheelock/Staff Writer)

“Many of the food pantries across the state have seen a significantly decreased volume of food,” McCarthy said, “and what’s tricky about that is it’s primarily really high-quality proteins in some of the food that’s in the highest demand at food pantries.”

At the same time, food pantries across the state are seeing increased demand, with inflation taking a larger bite out of family budgets and more people struggling to buy groceries. 

McCarthy said a third source of USDA funding cuts involve the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which will reduce benefits to recipients over the next few years, which is likely to increase the demand at food pantries in Maine.

The New Balance grant of $100,000 to the Good Shepherd Food Bank is significant, McCarthy said. “It’s a hugely impactful gift at a really critical time … when not just the food bank, but the entire charitable food network is being asked to do more and provide more with fewer resources. This level of support is really critical in order for us to prepare for what’s coming our way.”

The largest grant from New Balance was awarded to another long-term partner, Somerset Public Health in the amount of $323,436. New Balance has funded Somerset County’s Move More Kids program for 18 years. New Balance says their average term of support for nonprofits is about 13 years, compared with an average term of support of three to five years for many charitable corporate donors.

Students in Somerset County’s Move More Kids program take part in UMaine Day with athletes and coaches from the University of Maine. (Courtesy photo)

Kristie LeBlanc administers the Move More Kids program within all 28 schools in Somerset County. “Its primary focus is to increase opportunities for physical activity and healthy eating,” she explained. The program offers equipment from mountain bikes to a portable climbing wall, cross country skis and even archery gear. 

The schools have established a curriculum that is part of the physical education program. “This is really one of the only opportunities for a full health curriculum to be built into each of these schools,” LeBlanc said, adding that the program’s primary focus is to increase opportunities for physical activity and healthy eating.

LeBlanc points out that many of the schools don’t have a full-time health teacher, so the Move More Kids program helps keep the schools compliant with nutrition education requirements.

“Many times I get letters from superintendents and school board members and families just saying that without their support, they wouldn’t have the equipment in their schools, the programming in their schools. … You’re looking at the education and the curriculum and the reading, writing, math, but they’re also — in Somerset County — health is right up there because of the support that New Balance Foundation has provided.”

In addition to the charitable grants through the foundation,  New Balance has also contributed through its corporate charitable giving programs to support community athletic resources and workforce development initiatives in Maine, which includes a $200,000 donation to the town of Skowhegan for its Community Center athletic fields and a $250,000 donation to the Skowhegan Area Early Childhood Education Center.

New Balance’s global sales in 2024 reportedly reached nearly $8 billion, and the company says it plans to maintain its long-term commitments to the Maine communities that support its business.

“New Balance is doing very well as a company,” Bloch said. “We’ve seen 20% growth year over year. We expect to continue that trend … so I think the intent is 100% commitment to our communities where our associates live and work, whether that’s on the corporate side or on the foundation side.”