Musical Benefit, Felts Gifts Raise $5,525 To Abet Hunger

Musical Benefit, Felts Gifts

Raise $5,525 To Abet Hunger

The fortunes for feeding the unfortunate in South Brewster County have looked up. Mike Drinkard, an advocate with the Family Crisis Center of the Big Bend, posted the reassuring dollars Tuesday.

The musical benefit that Pat O'Bryan put together at the Starlight Theatre Sunday raised $2,860 for those who might go hungry. There were 360 people in 168 households in that category in February.

The gifts remembering Glenn Felts reached $2,665.

That's a total of $5,525, and those that benefit include up to 40 percent children. The number of households fluctuate monthly. Monthly pledges at the benefit totaled $1,000.

"There have been months lately when we didn't have enough food," Drinkard said. "With more money, I think we can get more options and talk to food producers. Maybe we will contact ranchers and see if they have some cows lying around. We could have meat that way. We're just looking at different options."

Right now, the food comes from West Texas Food Bank. The money to buy it--it is cheap and sometimes free--is donated by individuals and businesses. The food bank pays for the gas to pick up and deliver it.

"There used to be a lot more meat, a lot more protein," Drinkard said. "I look at the food bank list for ordering often, especially watching for meat to appear. There have been months when there appears not to be meat anywhere in the world."

He said the government was to cut back on money going to the United States Department of Agriculture, and that meant there was going to be a lot less USDA stuff at the food bank.

Micheal Drinkard at the FunDraiser (Photo by Voni Glaves)

"The food bank has a website. It's everything that they have," Drinkard explained. "We watch the list and wait to see if there is enough of any one of the items. So if there is enough of what we really want, we have to order fast because we competing with agencies all over West Texas.

"Sunday they had gotten boneless turkeys, and we needed 41 of the 75 cases. If I waited until I got to the office Monday, someone in Midland or elsewhere might have taken all the turkeys, so I ordered that night."

In a year it could be up to 300 households that use the crisis center's service. It's not the same 160 households every month.

"In a typical household, people are working. They just don't make much money," Drinkard explained. "It's not a bunch of people who drink every night."

It's like there are two typical households, he said. We don't see all the kids, but we see these young families. Then there are a lot of households that are single, and they are not old, but they are approaching 60 or older. The average age down in Terlingua is a lot older than in other places.

"I would say the south half of the county is 2,000 people," Drinkard estimated. "It's about 50-50 Anglo and Hispanic who need food.

The crisis center in Terlingua is a small outreach office. It is primarily there to help people who are victims of crime. There are volunteers.

"If you have been a victim of crime--and the crime could have happened along time ago--what happens to you in childhood sets you up for the rest of your life," Drinkard said. "Suddenly, you're not yourself. You're off balance. You need to recover from that.

"It seems like food can be a big part of that, taking away that worry. I think if you give somebody food, it will help them hold their head up and make them more confident, less vulnerable."

The center serves whoever comes in. "It would seem rude to say 'go away, you don't fit the client base,'" the advocate said. "Sometimes somebody is just walking through. They just ended up here, and they don't have any food. They were going to eat whatever they found on the side of the road, I guess. So we will give them some stuff.

"It will give them the strength to move on. We don't have many resources here."

As for donations, if people will write Family Crisis Center, Terlingua, on their checks, it will end any confusion.