By Joel Langton
The 830 Times
Seven chuckwagons rolled into Val Verde County Fairgrounds to serve 1,500 Thanksgiving meals to
those away from home due to efforts on the border.
Those targeted to be fed included Border Patrol agents, National and State Guard members, Department of Public Safety troopers and veterans.
Four of the chuckwagons came from Texas and three came from New Mexico, Oklahoma and Tennessee.
This was the second event sponsored by Del Rio’s Feed the Line organization. “We get a lot of credit for putting these events on,” said Carlo Reyes, one of Feed the Line’s volunteers. “But we couldn’t do it without this community, from the Del Rio Lions loaning us the Terminator to everyone sponsoring it, we just couldn’t do it without Del Rio.
The local Feed the Line grill masters managed to smoke 86 turkeys and 66 hams while the chuckwagon team cooked everything from buttermilk biscuits, gravy, dressing to peach cobbler.
There was a 15-foot by 8-foot television on hand, provided by the USO, to provide the other Thanksgiving staple, football.
Ronnie and Tammy Beckham, whose son-in-law is stationed at Laughlin AFB, said it wasn’t hard to find willing volunteers to head to the border to support the effort.
“We did the call out (an email message to chuckwagon chefs) and within an hour we had three volunteers, we knew it was going to work,” said Tammy.
While people could come through the fairgrounds and pick up meals, they also ferried meals to any place that had people working.
About 6 p.m., organizers realized all the workers had a chance to enjoy their Thanksgiving meal so they posted a Facebook message that the event was open to one and all.
“We handed out food to a lot of grateful families who picked up meals,” said Reyes. “It was really worth the effort when this lady showed up with a large family and she was tearing up. She said her oven was broken and she didn’t think her family was going to get a Thanksgiving meal.”
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Contact the author at joelalangton@gmail.com
