It’s no small feat. Each week, more than 12,000 pounds of food pass through the Legacy Center in Glendale, serving more than 5,000 families a month. At the heart of it all is Carmen Dominicci.

“I get the joy of knowing that I can come out everyday and help someone,” Dominicci said. “So even though I say I’m a full time volunteer. The payment for me is greater I think than the service I’m giving them.”

What You Need To Know

  • After retiring early, Carmen Dominicci decided to use her time volunteering full time at the Legacy Center

  • She now spends her time receiving shipments, sorting goods, and guiding people through the pantry line each week

  • She is also involved intaking hot meals to Maria Hernandez park each week and creating pop up pantries around NYC

  • Dominicci hopes to one day have the ability to pass out hot meals at their food pantry for anyone in the area in need of food that does not have access to a kitchen

Dominicci saw a need in her community and knew it was the perfect way to use her “extra time.”

Sometimes putting in more than eight hours of work each day, this full service volunteer is here receiving shipments, sorting goods, and guiding people through the lines. The supermarket style pantry guarantees clients get exactly what they need, and that nothing goes to waste.

“Rain, sleet, snow, cold; we’re just like the post man,” Dominicci joked. “We’re there all the time. Nothing pretty much stops us from serving the community.”

Her team of 30 volunteers coordinates more than just the weekly food pantry. They also spend Wednesday afternoons in Maria Hernandez Park giving out hot meals and have also created pop-up pantries outside of schools. Anywhere there is a need, Dominicci is happy to step in and create a solution.

“My doors will be open all the time, even if I have to come out on a Saturday, which I don’t like, but I’ll do it if I know there’s a donation that is going to serve this community,” Dominicci said.

Since the pandemic, Dominicci has seen an increase in need. Now, with asylum seekers joining the line, the team passes out clothing—and even furniture.

“When we started out in this location five and a half years ago,” Dominicci remembered. “If we had 170 people on the line it was like, ‘Oh, what a busy day’ and now to see 400-500 people, it hurts to know that there are that many people out there in need but it’s the times we’re living in.”

But Dominicci knows there’s something even more vital that she’s providing.

“You get to meet really great people and know that the person who is out there who has a need, their need, is being met,” remarked Dominicci. “First through a bag of groceries and then, with the care and the love that each one of us wants to show them.”

For bagging up groceries with a side of love, Carmen Dominicci is our New Yorker of the Week.