Transcript:

Buenos Dias. Good morning, my name is Gladys Vega, executive director of La Colaborativa. Love the location, beautiful work so congratulations to all. I am here today as a person that began during the pandemic a food pantry out of the porch of my house. I am that person that was feeding 11,000 people once a week in our office. And I created a food pantry in the office after I did the work recruiting food and donations and stuff. And let me tell you our situation has not changed. Our lines, I still have a food pantry underneath the, not the Tobin Bridge, but the over path of the continuation of the Tobin Bridge, and I feed 7000 people twice a week. Many of our community members that we feed are from many cities in the commonwealth. They're immigrants with legal status. Some of them are dreamers, some of them are people that are waiting for their 5 year wait for their residents to become a naturalized citizen.

And I have a lot of people that have an opportunity, they work, they were working okay, they got their hours cut. They were working in the local bodegas, restaurants, and now their income has not been able to be maintained because they cut their hours. Or even if they have full time hours, they're paying amazing amount, like huge amount of rental, you know, renting apartments is at high cost, utilities at high cost. I am here today to urge you to support House bill number 135 and Senate bill 876. I tell you at times, we run out of food at the food pantry, we have such a need. I, myself, when I go shopping, I noticed that in 3 bags, it's $150. Utility has gone up so for me, feeding immigrants in Massachusetts in the Commonwealth that have legal status is extremely important.

Sometimes I was that young girl that my mom was substance abuse and alcoholic when I was very young. I was that child that had to go to school for breakfast and lunch because if not, going home I didn't know what I had. That is the reality of many of our kids in the school system. So having cash system, food stamps, and support like that when they were the first responders and they were the ones working long hours during the pandemic and continue to do that. But the money, the economic crisis is impacting them drastically, and we need your support to pass this legislation that was extremely helpful in 1996 when Rep Cabral passed it. So please keep in mind the needs of our community, keep in mind that a healthy community is a community that has a house and food on their table to feed their children. Gracias.