By Susan Warner
Friday morning, closing in on 11 a.m., and the volunteers at Baby Steps Family Assistance community food shelf in Claremont gather around executive director Robin Wittemann. She gives them quick instructions on what’s to come: how to sort and shelve today’s incoming delivery of nutritious food from Willing Hands. Right on time, the truck pulls up to the Spring Street entrance. Almost immediately, delivery driver Brant Flint opens the truck doors and starts pulling together crates of fresh strawberries and peppers, loaves of bread, heads of cauliflower, and broccoli. He weighs and tallies each container before handing them over to Baby Steps’ teenage volunteers, Dylan and J.R., who lug them into the building.
Most of the 400 pounds of food will be sorted into grocery bags and boxes for families and community members who come to the pantry before 3 pm. Some will be set aside for weekend meals at the Trinity Church Warm Winter Shelter in Claremont. Any remaining food will be delivered by Robin to seniors in need who can’t make the trek to Baby Steps.
“Willing Hands supplies food for all of these efforts,” says Robin. She estimates that, thanks to the twice-weekly deliveries, Baby Steps’ food pantry has provided food to more than 1,600 adults and 400 children throughout the last twelve months and has served grab-and-go meals all winter at the warming shelter.
Next week’s delivery will be used to prepare one of the ten monthly Community Suppers that Baby Steps facilitates at Trinity Church, along with the Claremont Soup Kitchen and Nourish New England, all with support from Willing Hands. The sit-down suppers, which feed upwards of 150 people, are prepared by six volunteers, and everything is homemade.
At the most recent event, cooking volunteers included brothers Dylan and J.R, who today are helping carry and sort the Willing Hands’ food delivery. The young men lost their home when an apartment building was heavily fire damaged on February 13. Baby Steps helped their family get re-established in the community and find new housing. Dylan and J.R. are paying forward their gratitude by helping out at the Community Suppers and volunteering at the food pantry.
“I don’t know where we would be if it weren’t for Baby Steps,” says Dylan, “and I like to cook, so that’s a bonus.”
Robin Wittemann started Baby Steps in 2012 as part of a 4-H service project. She was teaching 5th graders about poverty and what they could do to help. Robin began collecting and handing out used clothes to people in need, collaborating with the Trinity Church in Claremont to store the extra clothes.
Around the same time, Robin also connected with Willing Hands for food deliveries, distributing to individuals and families facing food insecurity in Sullivan County.
As word about Baby Steps spread, the clothing stock outgrew the space at Trinity, and Robin moved the organization to the premises on Main Street. She added a community food pantry on the building’s first floor and the agency received nonprofit certification in 2018.
“We often work with members of the unhoused community or those who have just left the shelter,” says Robin. “Sometimes they’re living in a van. Or they’ve just lost their job or apartment. They need something to hold them over until they get re-settled.”
Across the years, Willing Hands has been a mainstay in helping Baby Steps feed the local community through deliveries on Tuesdays and Fridays. In 2025, Baby Steps received 38,000 pounds of food from Willing Hands.
“Gabe, Chris, and Cherry at Willing Hands have been tremendous supporters of Baby Steps,” says Robin. “And all the Willing Hands’ drivers are just amazing. We’re grateful for the gleaners, the farmers, and all the volunteers. We’ve built beautiful connections with each other, and it has been a true blessing.
“Our little community is built around the corner food pantry. I don’t know how our clients would survive without it.”
As the tide of visitors flows in and out of Baby Steps’ community food shelf, they exchange warm greetings with the staff and joke about the snow forecast. Robin and the volunteers know most of their clients by name. They ask after children and family members, and encourage their patrons to take additional healthy items for friends who need assistance but can’t make it to the food shelf.
Dylan shares grab-and-go packets of boiled eggs he made earlier this morning from a Willing Hands’ delivery. Boiled eggs are easily portable, nutrient-dense foods that are so popular that Baby Steps gives out several dozen each week.
At the door, Julie Haslam, a local neighbor and volunteer at Baby Steps, checks in. Julie is Robin’s prep-chef and all-around right hand at the Community Suppers. Julie, who is affiliated with Nourish New England, is also delighted by the range and variety of Willing Hands’ deliveries.
“Willing Hands is helping feed hundreds of people in this community, and we are so grateful,” Julie says. “They are delivering more than just food,” she gestures to the cluster of men and women filling grocery bags, “they’re nourishing souls.”