SAN ANTONIO – A small idea became a huge movement. Now, up to 60 people from San Antonio’s South Side have made several trips to the coast, delivering hot meals.
Pictures show an assembly line of love, for those who have lost everything.
"It's very overwhelming, people crying, people hugging you, people thanking you, you're such a blessing. We literally have seen people driving around with whatever they had left from the flood," April Monterrosa said.
It was Monterrosa's friend, Gabe Bondoc, who first came up with the idea of taking his Iron Q catering company to the coast, their second home.
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"Every Labor Day, every holiday we go out there. It's probably a good group of 30 of us," Monterrosa said.
Monterrosa set up a Facebook page to help those impacted by the storm. The page, called "Texas Coastal Relief 2017- Hurricane Harvey," now has at least 450 members and counting.
"It blew up. Fifty-six people made the first run. We served about 1,700 hamburgers and hot dogs to Rockport. It was crazy," Monterrosa said. "We had all of our canopies up. We had all of our ice chests, of course we had trailers, trucks."
Then other South Side companies began to contribute.
"We fed Refugio twice, Aransas Pass, Rockport twice," she said. "It’s a combination of different emotions, sadness, you feel good that you’re doing something for them. I think it’s a sense of hope for them."
The humbling experience has filled Monterrosa with pride.
"Being on the South Side, there's always bad negative things mentioned about our part of town, but there are good things that happen here too," she said.
She wants her community, her state and the world to know there's always enough of that good to go around.
Overwhelmed with the support Monterrosa is even able to spread the donations from her Facebook group to other organizations making regular trips to the coast.
