06/03/2026
This woman and her husband have stood by us since we formed our nonprofit, before we built it and still to this day. In March of 2024… we had hundreds of pounds of dry beans and bags of lentils going untouched. They just kept stacking up and we didn’t know what else to do with them. We’d try giving them out and they’d give them right back. People weren’t taking them out of the self serve pantry and they were being donated constantly by the closest food bank.
We started asking people why they weren’t cooking them. There’s a few issues out here with the beans. People with lack of know how on what to do with the beans for one. The second issue being some locals don’t have electricity and others don’t have running water. The third being 90% of the year our county is on a burn ban so making them on an open fire goes out the window too. This brings me to the fourth… people with full time jobs don’t have the time to soak the beans/ make the beans due to work schedule / extensive travel time to jobs. We live in a rural community.
Lizabeth and her husband Todd stepped in to save the day. Instead of taking the beans across the border to Mexico where my aunt had moved here from… they had a better idea. Trying to eliminate having to pay tariffs / adding an additional headache getting the beans across and simultaneously keeping the food within the community… Lizabeth and Todd started cooking them instead. Guess what? People suddenly started eating the beans…. We rarely have “too many beans” on hand now.
Instead of spending additional funds for this program.. they have always used items that we have mass amounts in stock or produce that doesn’t get picked up to avoid spoiling… to continue making “homemade” meals for our local homies that didn’t have the means to make their own. Not to mention…. Lizabeth buys a lot of the additional produce, seasonings, containers out of her own pocket. This past March marked two years of their commitment to helping curve the food insecurity in our community.
They weren’t going to tell you so I wanted to. Let’s give it up for Lizabeth and Todd. We are so grateful for you both. It truly takes a village and we are honored that you have dedicated so much time being a part of it. We had to tell the world so they could see one example of what true dedication to a community looks like .🙏❤️
