CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Thousands of people gathered at the American Bank Center Saturday to celebrate H-E-B's 35th annual Feast of Sharing event. After finding a seat at a table, people were served a true Texas-style dinner that consisted of brisket, sausage, potato salad, and beans and apple pie for dessert.
"H-E-B is super excited to be able to put this event on. This is something H-E-B is doing to just give back to the community that's really supported us for so long and really give people a warm meal during the holiday season," said H-E-B public affair specialist Bobby Rodriguez.
Feast of Sharing spans over 34 different cities in both Texas and Mexico and serves over 340,000 meals annually. To pull off an event of this size in Corpus Christi, Rodriguez says the key is assembling a team of volunteers that are ready to serve their community.
"For an event of this magnitude, it really takes a lot of manpower behind it. We have over 1,500 volunteers and we're prepared to serve over 10,000 meals just today," he said.
Members of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated, Lucretia Nickelson and Dr. Jaishree Ellis are just two of the volunteers that make the feast of sharing possible.
"Serving the community is what we do. We provide our service to all mankind for Alpha Kappa Alpha. This is our twentieth year working the H-E-B Feast of Sharing and being a part of this community service project," Nickelson said.
"We want to not only be in the community. We want to contribute to the community, and we want to have a positive impact on the community and one of our goals is to uplift the community, so this is one of the ways that we do that," Ellis said.
Nickleson and Ellis said being able to serve the community is a privilege. For them, being able to see the direct impact their volunteer work has on others means a great deal to them.
"There's a big impact and you get to see it. Sometimes in our community work, you don't get to see the people that it impacts, but here you come to a place like this, you see the lives that you're effecting," Ellis said.
