For Hispanic Heritage Month, we’re highlighting leaders who’ve made a remarkable impact on Food & Friends. By telling the stories of the family members who inspire them, we celebrate the prosperity, power, and progress of Hispanic Americans.
Food & Friends is the only community-based organization in the D.C. region providing home-delivered medically tailored meals and medical nutrition therapy to our neighbors living with cancer, HIV/AIDS, and other serious illnesses. The stories of those we are honoring have common threads; hard-working families making a powerful positive impact in the United States, while building prosperous legacies.
Maria S. Gomez founded Mary’s Center with a group of health advocates and the DC Mayor’s Office on Latino Affairs in 1988 to help immigrant women fleeing war and poverty in Central America. Mary’s Center began to refer their patients to Food & Friends, and we continue to advance our partnership today. Mary’s Center is an important referral partner, committed to quality healthcare and stronger communities, and we are proud to provide their patients with medically tailored meals, and nutrition counseling.
“My mother raised me as a single parent. She made a choice to travel with me from Colombia to guarantee that I had the opportunity to attend college. I remember her always working two full-time jobs 16-20 hours a day and praying that her words, how she led her life, and the community around us would look after me while she provided an extremely humble but safe home, inside our four walls. She would often say, ‘When you go to college – not if – choose a career that will make children coming behind you proud, inspired, and better off than you will ever be.'”
– Maria S. Gomez, Founder of Mary’s Center and 2012 Presidential Citizens Medal honoree
Board member Fernando Garcia is the dynamic leader of MetroNando, known as one of the most personable, talented, and professional real estate agents in the region. He can often be found volunteering in the kitchen at Food & Friends or helping shepherd our organization to greater impact across the community through his stalwart and visionary board service.
“There is no question about who has most inspired me, Hispanic or otherwise. My late mother, Blanca, continually impressed upon me the importance of education. The most powerful lesson came at 15, when I spent a summer packing boxes at a factory where she worked as a bookkeeper. At the end of the summer, she instructed me to take those three months of minimum wages and buy school clothes and supplies for my three younger siblings for the coming year. “If you don’t go to college, this is what the end of every summer will feel like.”
We four boys of hers were the first in the extended family (Mom was the youngest of 12 children) to get college degrees, thanks in no small part to her. Years later, in her early 50s, working as a bookkeeper at the University of New Mexico, where all her boys earned their bachelor’s degrees, she went back to school and earned her very own accounting degree. She was so proud! She will forever be my inspiration to strive.”
– Fernando Garcia, VP Residential Sales | RLAH, MetroNando Real Estate
Food & Friends has 13 staff working in kitchen, grocery and expediting operations. Through their combined work and the support of caring donors and 3,000 dedicated volunteers, Food & Friends will prepare, package and home deliver 1.9 million medically tailored meals in 2023. Our baker is Adan Cortez, who brings decades of experience and a flair for creativity, often making delightful treats for volunteers.
When we were seeking a new Expediting Assistant, Adan encouraged his son Bryan to apply. Bryan is a sophomore at the University of Maryland, studying communications and interested in work in the nonprofit sector.
“Growing up in a small immigrant family with no close relatives and no support besides my father has been challenging. It has, however, taught me a lot about what it means to “be a man” or have responsibilities. My dad has always pushed me to be the best that I can, and all I needed was to see him as an example.
He always said “Hay que echarle ganas a la vida, porque nadie te va regalar nada.” Meaning, you have to push forward in life because nothing is going to be handed to you.
He came to this country with nothing – no family, no acquaintances, nowhere to live or go, and the constant fear of possibly being deported for just wanting to have a better life. He always worked late nights and extra jobs whenever he could – and always did more than was required. Like many latino households, he was the only parent working. My mom battled illnesses that prevented her from holding any jobs. It inspired me to see how he would sometimes not even eat or get enough rest, just for his sons and his wife.
Chef Adan Cortez, my father, has been the pinnacle of what it means to be a real man, and most importantly, my father. Gracias por todo papa, Tú eres mi inspiración.
– Bryan Cortez, Food & Friends expediting assistant
Photo series by volunteer Ralph Alswang.