How We Serve Our Neighbors
The Newton Food Pantry aims to alleviate food insecurity in Newton by providing supplemental food and personal care products to community members in need, serving our clients with dignity, compassion and respect.
We believe no one deserves to go hungry, and everyone has a right to nutritious food. We address food insecurity with a community-based approach and value equity and inclusion. Our clients feel welcome and accept our help with dignity.
The Many Ways We Serve Our Newton Neighbors
- Bi-monthly choice shopping at our pantry for Newton residents and Newton-based college students and staff
- Choice shopping includes a large variety of fresh produce, dairy, proteins, staples, personal care products and a large selection of culturally-relevant foods to serve our diverse client population
- Bulk delivery to seven Newton Housing Authority complexes
- Home delivery to medically homebound residents
- Stocking the Newton Community freedge daily and paying all associated expenses
- Lasell University Dry Pantry re-stocking
- Kids’ Bags to all clients with children twice a month
- Partnership with Welcome Home to provide home goods for clients
- Biannual grocery store gift cards for all clients
- Community partnerships to provide Thanksgiving and holidays meals
- Community partnerships to provide holiday gifts to clients for gift giving
- Teen Ambassador Program partnership to provide winter gear and books for clients
- Quarterly delivery of shelf-stable food to support Family Access of Newton
Strategic Plan & Looking to the Future
As food insecurity continues to grow in Newton, the Newton Food Pantry must maintain its critical services and ensure future sustainability. Our 2024 strategic plan embraces these goals.
Ensuring Sustainability
Due to the continued rise in need for food assistance in Newton and the tremendous organizational growth achieved in recent years, the Newton Food Pantry has hired its first Executive Director to ensure that this growth is sustained while maintaining our existing services.
In addition, the Newton Food Pantry is working on IT platform integration to help streamline our processes. This has created a system ready for continued growth in terms of volunteering, communications and donor relations.
Enhancing Client Experience
After much logistical planning, in September of 2023, we expanded our in-person shopping hours in order to reduce client wait times and accommodate the rise in numbers of households served. Clients can now shop Thursdays by appointment in addition to our Wednesday appointment and walk-in hours.
So that our clients have a voice, we conduct client focus groups at least twice a year where we offer multi-lingual translators. We embrace our clients’ many cultures by offering a culturally-relevant food section during all shopping days, as well as cultural sensitivity training for our volunteers and staff.
Expanding Client Reach
We continue to partner with many social service nonprofits in order to find common ground. We believe this approach will help us reach as many Newton residents in need as possible. The Newton Food Pantry will continue to meet clients where they are by thinking outside the box on different food delivery methods beyond our brick and mortar pantry.
In addition to our 24-hour freedge located on Watertown Street and the dry pantry at Lasell College, in 2024 we will partner with William James College by supplying staples for their new dry pantry.
Secure Space
While we are grateful to the City of Newton for the space in City Hall, we have simply outgrown it. Therefore, we formed a Real Estate Committee in late 2023 and are currently searching for larger options in Newton.
To learn more about our accomplishments and strategic plan, please watch our October 2023 Annual Meeting here (passcode aM4.6peL), or download the presentation slides here.