Pastor Donnie Baker quietly helps shoppers make ends meet

A Hempstead pastor’s acts of kindness have helped to fill the shopping carts — and hearts — of hundreds of community members.

Donnie Baker, a pastor at Redeem Tabernacle Church in Hempstead, has been using his own savings to purchase $2,500 worth of groceries every three months for random residents outside of the nearby CTown Supermarket. He limits each customer to $50 or less so he can help as many as possible and pays for the items no questions asked, he said.

Baker, 69, said he began buying the groceries about three years ago after he witnessed a woman who didn’t have enough money for her items once she got to the cash register. He credits his desire to help those in need with having grown up in a low-income family.

“I don’t want people to go through what I went through; I want them to make their lives better than what mine was,” Baker said. “I don’t care who it is. I don’t need to know them, and I don’t need them to know me.”

Baker, who grew up in Mississippi, spent 18 months in the U.S. Army Special Forces before moving to New York and eventually becoming a pastor at Sardis Baptist Church in the Bronx, where he served for 32 years before founding the Redeem Tabernacle Church in Hempstead 13 years ago. He was also a code enforcement officer for the Town of Hempstead for 33 years until his retirement in 2021, he said.

Since coming to Hempstead, Baker has uplifted residents with everything from purchasing groceries to a Community Day, which is held each summer across the street from his church. The festivities include free food prepared by Baker and giveaways of clothing left behind by customers at a dry cleaner in Baldwin, which donates the apparel annually to Baker, he said.

Baker’s other efforts include buying soup and sandwiches that he gives away to individuals in need every January on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. He also started a higher education fund at his church for parishioners to help with expenses for the community’s youth who are in college.

“I get my energy from helping people,” Baker said. “I know what it means to struggle, and I know what it means to want what you can’t get.”

One person who praised the pastor was Clariona Griffith, a former Hempstead Village trustee and church parishioner who said Baker is “always willing to jump in and help” his fellow community members.

“With the price of food and everything going up, sometimes people need a break,” Griffith said. “To have someone like him say, ‘I got this,’ that helps so much.”

By Michael R. Ebert

michael.ebert@newsday.com

Michael R. Ebert is an education researcher and has worked for Newsday in various capacities since 2003. He was part of an 11-person team named as 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalists for investigative coverage of the LIRR's platform safety issues.