After retiring from 35 years of teaching literacy at schools in East Harlem, Josephine started volunteering at New York Common Pantry. Josephine has worked in different capacities as a volunteer. She’s worked in the kitchen, helped pack Pantry bags, and more. She enjoys packing the Pantry bags the most because it reminds her of making sancocho. Sancocho is a Puerto Rican soup that you put whatever you have in your refrigerator into a big or small pot. She makes a connection of how someone else might be making sancocho with the produce that she packed and that makes her feel grateful.
“You never know when you’re going to be food insecure so it’s always important to give to others what they need. I think they get it here in many different capacities without being stigmatized which I like. In other places you go, it’s not the same feeling,” she says.
While growing up in East Harlem, her and her family’s experience with receiving public assistance left them feeling judged. Josephine gives back to her community because she knows food insecurity can happen to anyone and no one should receive unfair treatment when they need help. The first time Josephine volunteered for Hot Meals, the person she handed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to, she recognized was a former student of hers from many years ago. He was no longer a child but a grown man. That was a defining moment that motivated Josephine, who said “I knew I was in the right place.”
Josephine was born and raised in New York City. Her parents are from Puerto Rico. She has two children. Josephine is a very creative and active person. She dances Afro-Caribbean, drums, and she paints.
To learn more about volunteering at New York Common Pantry, click here.