Community rallies to provide food during outages
Feb. 28—HARLINGEN — Power outages left businesses and homes without electricity for days in Harlingen. With no power available, many families were in need of instant food because cooking was not an option. So business owners made efforts to help those in need immediately.
Enrique Abundiz, from Harlingen, is the owner of an auto repair shop. Abundiz announced on social media he was going to be handing out menudo, a typical Mexican dish, for people who had not eaten. However, this is not the first time Abundiz has offered help. He has offered chicken plates in the past — just because.
"We were serving it, people had to bring their own bowl or pot. We did it for three days and approximately we made enough for 900 people," Abundiz said.
"I saw a lot of elderly people. I specifically wanted to help people who had no light, had children and no means to be cooking," he said.
Abundiz emphasized he likes to hacer el bien, meaning do good in Spanish. Even after he stopped giving menudo, he received phone calls thanking him.
"I had a guy call me on Monday morning at 7:30 and said he wanted to thank me for what I did. That I helped his family," he said.
"It is always a good feeling to help people. I do it so other people can see me do it and mimic it and I can motivate them and they can do better than me. If we were all helping each other no one would have to struggle, da con el corazon," Abundiz said, to give with your heart.
Stephanie Rendon, from New York Deli in Harlingen, was another business owner who devoted time and resources to help. New York Deli offered 100 plates of sandwiches with chips and pickles.
"We were also in the situation where we did not have any light and had to search for food but once we had electricity we knew people were also struggling," she said.
"They did not have a way to go and wait in line. We wanted to offer something to eat," Rendon said.
More than the 100 they were able to feed showed up, but Rendon said she was happy that what was available was given to those who got a chance.
"We ran out of bread, our products still had not shipped in, but we had a positive response" she said.
On the other side of Harlingen, at Hummingbird Valley Boutique and Gift Shoppe, owner Rebecca Hughes offered help to the community as well. Hughes went to her shop and realized she did not have power. As she was walking around she realized how cold it was.
"I imagined how people felt inside their homes and thought, I need to make caldo de res for whoever needs it," Hughes said.
"I saw people on Facebook posting they were cold and they had not been able to cook," she said.
The next day, Hughes continued to offer food. She thought the outages would not last as long as they did but since the conditions were the same, Hughes made some more meals.
"We were facing a new dilemma; there was no food. I got two packages of ground beef and I made spaghetti and we ran out pretty quickly," she said.
Soon after that people contacted her they wanted to donate meat and other items for her to continue to provide meals.
"People were just coming and it was pretty amazing, then I had people donate like ten pounds of ground beef and I made 60 servings of sopita," she said.
"I said, this is what I am going to do with my time, it just felt right," Hughes said.
