By Ruth Ann Ruiz
The Post Newspaper Features Editor
Washing pots on Friday morning and setting them to boil with five gallons of water gave me a unique perspective on the Lighthouse Charity Team. I had seen the team’s Facebook post late Thursday asking for volunteers and responded.
Years ago, I enjoyed a hearty meal of fried Gulf shrimp at the state Capitol, provided by the Lighthouse Charity Team. Now I was able to give back in a very small way.
The Lighthouse Charity leadership team received a call from Galveston County asking its members if they would provide meals at Dickinson High School.
The county had set up an emergency sleeping and cooling station at Dickinson High School which was staffed by volunteers from the American Red Cross.
Lighthouse leaders are no strangers to helping in times of disaster and they were more than willing to answer the call and light up the burners at their building on Galveston Island.
There was one little hitch to their eagerness, an electrical line had been brought down during Hurricane Beryl and was blocking the entrance to the facility. The building had power via generators during the outage, but it was not possible for the Lighthouse trucks to exit the premises.
Within a short time, electric crews were sent to solve the situation and to allow the Lighthouse Team to do what they do best — get food cooking and deliver it to people in need.
With smiles and quick preparation, the team pulled together hundreds of meals for those who needed to be fed.
“Sometimes it’s a warm meal, sometimes it’s an understanding few words that helps people in a time of disaster,” shared Horacene Daugrid, who founded the Lighthouse Charity Team with her late husband Dick Daugrid.
She had come to the high school and assisted in serving and spent time speaking with the individuals who had come in for a meal.
The Lighthouse Charity Team responded to other calls to assist as they came in, including providing meals for seniors at Holland House in Galveston and hosting a shrimp boil for lineman on Friday evening.
Many people and organizations came together to provide ice, cooling centers, food, and other needed items to those without power after Hurricane Beryl knocked out the electricity for over 2.5 million customers in the region.
Thank you to everyone for heading God’s call to care for our neighbors!!! We would like to honor our local heroes, but we don’t know all of them.
If you would like to share with us about an individual or an organization that went above and beyond to help in the recovery efforts, send a brief description and a photo to publisher@thepostnewspaper.net. Include your name and contact information along with contact information for the hero or heroes you have submitted.
