Immigrant Woman Starts Food Pantry In Her Home To Help Undocumented Families

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Peruvian refugee Xiomy De la Cruz holds her 13-month-old daughter, Maia, last month in her Hartford, Conn., home, which was once filled with donations of food and sundries as part of the food pantry she has set up during the pandemic.

Joe Amon/Connecticut Public

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De la Cruz began collecting food, diapers and milk and started distributing them to friends and neighbors. She called it La Bodeguita de la Gente or The People’s Little Cornerstore. For six months, she stored everything in her Hartford living room.

«My living room, my entrance, my porch, became the People’s Little Cornerstore. I no longer had a table, no armchairs, because as more donations were coming in, people began to hear about the store,» De la Cruz said.

Many of the families who knocked on her front door are undocumented, severly impacted by the pandemic and were ineligible for federal COVID-19 assitance. The food pantry quickly outgrew her living room, and she borrowed a space in what she describes as the heart of Hartford’s Latino and immigrant community.

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Ingmar Riveros and Peruvian refugee Xiomy De la Cruz distribute food from a store basement last month in Hartford, Conn.

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«Because of the pandemic, this was the right place for many of us to go. There were many of us who didn’t have jobs, especially immigrants because in this country, it seems to be that we don’t count,» Romero said.

However, she says she also became part of a community of families who share resources, information and, most importantly, mutual support.

De la Cruz, prides herself in having built that community of families and a rapid-response network that now not only distributes pantry items every week, but also addresses other urgent needs such as immigration updates and domestic violence prevention resources.

«The only dream I would ever ask for is to put up a refuge home so that the families who have just arrived here can at least have food,» she said.

In the meantime, she helped many have a meal this Thanksgiving.

• food pantry
• pandemic
• undocumented immigrants
• food insecurity