WESLACO — While nearly everything has returned back to normal since the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, one event had yet to make a comeback — H-E-B’s popular “Feast of Sharing.”
But all that changed here on Saturday when the community get-together returned — with a bit of a Texas twist.
“We haven’t been able to do (the) Feast of Sharing for a couple of years because of the pandemic. So, what we wanted to do is come back in a very big, special way — the Texas way,” said Alicia Cantu, a store leader at the grocery chain’s Weslaco location on Westgate Drive.
Cantu was referring to the dishes that H-E-B — along with several dozen volunteers — served during the meal, which is meant to celebrate the spirit of the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.
Rather than the traditional turkey and trimmings, this year’s feast involved smoked brisket, sliced sausage and all the sides one would expect at a Texas backyard barbecue.
And for dessert, diners dug into slices of all-American apple pie.
Officials hoped to feed some 3,000 people during the feast, which was hosted at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church.
As droves of volunteers flitted about handing out plates piled high or cans of H-E-B-branded soda, they could have easily been mistaken for Santa’s elves.
Their cheerful, organized work was offset by the bright sounds of a children’s choir singing Christmas carols.
“I think it’s amazing, just everyone coming together in unity as a community should,” Weslaco resident Daisy Lopez said.
“It’s my first time being here and I really enjoy it,” she added.
Lopez and her family had come to support 11-year-old Adele Grace, one of the choir singers from Cleckler-Heald Elementary School.
Adele’s dad, Abel, said the feast’s fancy fixings came as a surprise to the Lopez family, who have made several trips so far this season to support her performances.
“It’s really, really unique and really cool because there’s a lot of people from the community here,” Abel Lopez said of the feast.
That community is what brought a group of Winter Texans out to enjoy the Feast of Sharing.
Meeting new people, listening to the kids singing carols, and enjoying weather that’s much more agreeable than that found in Saskatchewan, Canada was what brought Harvey Olshewski, his wife, Bev, and their friends from Rio Valley Estates.
Temperatures in the central Canadian province where Olshewski is from were forecast to dip several degrees below zero on Saturday.
Dubbed “the Canadian” by his friend, Bill Jones, it was Olshewski who had told the Weslaco retirement community group about Saturday’s feast.
Jones quipped that he had to come because “we spend a lot of money at H-E-B” while taking refuge from Kansas City’s harsh Midwestern winters.
Working in partnership with community organizations, such as local school districts or churches, H-E-B hosts Feasts of Sharing in nearly three dozen communities across Texas and northern Mexico each November and December.
The grocery chain, which is well-known for its philanthropy, began the feast tradition in 1989, according to public affairs specialist Audrey Treviño Guerra.
“It has been more than three decades since we started our dinners and more than… 375,000 volunteers have helped serve more than 4 million meals,” Treviño Guerra said.
For Jose “J.P” Rodriguez, the District 3 Weslaco city commissioner, events like this are precisely the point of public service.
“What’s really awesome about this event is for all of us — whether it’s representatives, officials from the city, H-E-B, St. Joan of Arc Church — all of us to come together, break bread together and be a community and lift each other up,” Rodriguez said.
