(Seguin) — Hundreds of volunteers came out this week to load the backs of pickup trucks and fill trunks of vehicles with pounds and pounds of food. One by one, vehicles made their way through the assigned lanes in the Seguin Coliseum parking lot picking up staples such as milk, bread, beans, fruit and meat.
The event hailed as the “Mega Food Distribution Drive” was made possible thanks to a host of partnerships. Those coming together included the city of Seguin, Guadalupe Regional Medical Foundation and the New Braunfels Food Bank.
Jumping at the opportunity to get the city involved was City Manager Steve Parker. Parker, who himself was loading vehicle’s with sacks of flour, says feeding families especially during times like these should be a priority for any community.
“It is truly inspiring just the teamwork that’s come together between all of the city departments, the county, everybody just working together, the turnout of volunteers. It just really makes you proud of this community. There’s a lot of people in need right now. Our heart goes out to them so anything we can do to help them through this crisis and getting our lives back to normal and get people back in their jobs (and) everybody just trying to be safe. It’s just an amazing turnout, teamwork. It’s really a great event,” said Parker.
Parker says he is especially pleased by the city employees who have all come together to help make today a success.
“They’ve been planning this thing for several weeks, multiple meetings. They went to different events and have seen how they operate and trying to tweak what they do and I just didn’t think that they could be more prepared than they were and they just hit it out of the park for me — John Donnelly (director of public works) and his team, parks, fire, police just all of them working together and making sure that this thing was well oiled as can be and they were here ready to go when the food trucks got here,” said Parker.
Parker says it is also been a personal rewarding experience to help his neighbors and is amazed by all those who came out to volunteer their time.
“It just makes you feel great. I mean I”m the new guy here in Seguin but I feel like I’ve been here my whole life. It’s just because of the way that the community comes together during different events. I’ve been through some major events in other cities that I’ve worked for — floods, fires, things like that — and you really see how your team operates, how your community works together by seeing how they operate during a tragedy, a pandemic, anything like that and just the teamwork and how this whole thing comes together. It’s been inspiring. It’s been great,” said Parker.
Parker says this week’s event was a huge undertaking having served close to 800 families. While he is not sure about any definite dates for any future event, he does know that the city as well as Guadalupe County are ready and committed to meeting the needs of their residents however, they can.
“The county has put up some funds in their last year’s budget to have a couple of more of these. I don’t know if to this degree but we will be prepared and will handle it now that we kind of got our feet wet of how this is going. I think we can put these together as regularly as we need to. I just ask everybody, if you can, this is a great organization to donate to. Really, what everybody needs right now is food and help with their rent and things like that to get them through this hump as we get ready to go back to our normal lives but this is just a perfect situation to contribute to and make a difference in somebody’s life right now,” said Parker.
Initiating this week’s partnership with the city of Seguin was the Guadalupe Regional Medical Foundation. The Foundation works year-round to host similar drives at the hospital.
In addition to city, GRMC and community volunteers, members of the 840th MAC Texas Military Department (national guard) were also on hand to help streamline the process – getting folks through the lines as smooth and as quickly as possible. Those who were unable to pre-register for the drive or who could not make it out on Thursday are asked to call the New Braunfels Food Bank at 830-327-6000.
The Christian Cupboard here in Seguin is also open, and people in need of food, can also get access to those supplies by visiting the Christian Cupboard on North Camp Streeet.