Client Spotlight: Baby Cornelio

The Newton Food Pantry provides food assistance to a wide range of community members, including families that span multiple generations.

Baby Cornelio, a native of the Dominican Republic, lives with her adult daughter and 7-year-old grandson in Newtonville. The 47-year-old has called Newton her home for nearly three decades and has been part of the Newton Food Pantry community for some time.

She says the support her family receives from our pantry plays a critical role in helping them put nutritious meals on the table. Her daughter works as a secretary at a local hospital, and together they do their best to get by.

Baby says she first learned about the Newton Food Pantry through a City of Newton social worker, in 2017. She now regularly visits the pantry twice a month — the maximum allowed — ensuring her household has steady access to groceries.

What keeps her coming back, she says, is both the quality of the food and the relief it brings. “I like everything at the Newton Food Pantry,” says Baby, a native Spanish speaker who is among the 60% of Newton Food Pantry clients that speak a language other than English at home. “The fresh vegetables, the chicken, the eggs…everything. It helps me a lot.”

Stories like Baby’s reflect why the Newton Food Pantry exists: to provide reliable, dignified access to healthy groceries for neighbors who need it.