Cup of Community: Many meet for coffee and learn about downtown events

HARLINGEN — Juan Ortega jumped out of airplanes during the Vietnam War.

He was in the 101st Airborne Screaming Eagles.

But now as a Harlingen resident and member of the community, he still musters up the energy to make an appearance at community meetings and events.

Yesterday, he dropped into the morning Downtown Coffee meeting in Harlingen.

“It was the first time that I ever attended this event,” Ortega, 67, said. “It was a beautiful and well organized event.”

He noted if the city leaders had attended, there would have been even more people enjoying coffee and pastries and gathering Harlingen news and information about upcoming events.

The city leaders were representing Harlingen at the Texas Municipal League conference in Austin.

“The majority of the small business here were from Jackson Street,” Ortega said. “But I would have liked to see more young people here.”

Ortega learned about the morning meeting after reading about it in the newspaper.

A member of the Parks and Recreation Department talked about the downtown Halloween event that will be taking place on Jackson Street.

And a representative of the Harlingen Museum spoke about the Day of the Dead altar exhibit that is set up for public viewing.

“We had a wonderful turnout,” said Ed Meza, Downtown Harlingen director. “It is a wonderful opportunity for downtown merchants and the public to come and learn what we are doing downtown.”

He said the downtown community is unified and coming together to promote downtown.

“We have speakers and then we have public announcements,” Meza said. “And the merchants donate prizes at the end of the meeting and that is very popular.”

While the presenters spoke during the meeting and while the raffle took place, the more than 50 people in attendance at the Jackson Square Events Center enjoyed breakfast, coffee and drinks with sweet bread from Olivier’s French Sweet Bread bakery.

“The Halloween extravaganza, the Market Days dancing that I’m going to start having here at the event center is going to start drawing in more people,” said Edward Molina, of Jackson Street Event Center.