By Joel Langton
The 830 Times
A 29-year-old faith-based entrepreneur is providing 24,600 meals per day to hungry Haitians under the International Bridge when needed, thanks to an agreement he has with the Department of Homeland Security.
Bradley Morris, owner of Theophilus Government Solutions, has an agreement to help feed immigrants detained, or in this case waiting to be processed, by Border Patrol on the United States and Mexico Border whenever needed.
“We have served up to 100,000 to 150,000 meals per day across the Southwest border,” Morris said. During the dozen plus months he’s been in the immigrant
feeding business, he said this is one of the three biggest sites he’s served and the first time he’s fed Haitians.
Morris said his initial bid for this contract came in around $51 million and has mushroomed into a five-year government blanket purchase agreement he said was valued at $208 million. That doesn’t mean they get the entire amount, but they are one of several companies that provide meals under it.
Morris’s team served the meals for the encampment under the International Bridge Friday and Saturday.
“We received a call at 5 p.m. Thursday they needed 24,600 meals the next day, 8,200 at breakfast, lunch and dinner, so we flew into action,” Morris said.
There are plenty of guidelines for the meals, everything from the heat it has to be at to nothing can go into the encampments that can be used as a weapon. “That means nothing with a bone, we can’t send anything in that needs a fork, knife or spoon.”
Morris said 80 percent of the meals are prepared at a commercial kitchen, “within 15 miles of Del Rio.” However, they won’t say where.
He’s had to lean on local restaurants for some of the meals, contracting with Lucero’s, Rudy’s and Laredo Tacos plus Firehouse Subs delivers from San Antonio.
“He called and wanted to do an order for 6,000 and we said we couldn’t,” said Nanca Rodriguez, general manager of Del Rio’s Rudy’s. “We adjusted to an order we could handle without impacting our regular customers and did 500 on Thursday and 500 Friday.”
While some have complained on social media that he’s cleaning out the shelves to feed the Haitians, Morris said that is not true.
“We have major suppliers that brings the food directly to us,” he said. “Now coolers, that might be a different story, we have bought a lot of coolers in Del Rio.”
Right now, Morris and his team are on standby waiting for the phone to ring again.
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Contact the author at joelalangton@gmail.com
