On July 4, as news of the unfolding tragedy in Kerrville reached Arturo Ramon of Driftwood, he became agitated. He wanted to do something to help. “I thought of those girls in the camps and couldn’t stop thinking about what they must have felt during those hours and minutes. I knew I had to do something.”
No stranger to the devastation brought by flooding in this part of Texas, Ramon helped his mother who lived on the Blanco River, and relatives on Flite Acres, cope during the 2015 flood in Wimberley.
After several hours of agonizing, his wife Jessica told him to “just go.”
Owner of the Blanco River Meat Company, and father to grown children as well as three young sons at home, Ramon loaded up his cooker, meat, including a package of tri-tips, and a few supplies and headed towards Kerrville.
“I’m a person who usually has a plan, but I left home without one. I had a few hundred dollars, no change of clothes and no place to stay.”
Meanwhile, his wife Jessica shared with family and friends on social media Ramon’s journey into the unknown. By the time he approached Kerr County, his few hundred dollars had grown to $2600 from supporters who donated via his company website. He drove around the area, asking people where he might set up his cooker.
“Kerrville was a mess,” he said. Rescue efforts were still in their infancy. Not finding a location, he spent the first night sleeping in his truck.
The next morning he stopped Department of Public Safety officers who suggested that he go to the Volunteer Fire Station in Centerpoint, about 10 miles from Kerrville. As the name suggests, Centerpoint is halfway between Kerrville and Comfort. Just hours after the Guadalupe River surged to 36 feet in Kerrville, 35-foot floodwaters hit Comfort. It sounded like a good place to land.
When he arrived at the fire station, he was handed a shovel to help muck out mud. Just 220 feet from the Guadalupe river, the station had taken on eight feet of water. “So I did that,” Ramon said.
Soon afterwards he set up his cooker, and despite any access to water or electricity, began preparing a meal for anyone who needed one.
“People didn’t quite know what to make of me at first,” he said. “After it looked like I wasn’t going anywhere, people started getting used to seeing me and they told others.”
As volunteers, first responders and rescue teams poured into the area, word spread that you could get a hot, home cooked meal in Centerpoint.
“I began to panic,” he said, because his initial money was exhausted. “But I promised myself that I’d stay just one more day.”
By the next week, he was serving hundreds of meals per day. After seeing posts from Ramon’s wife Jessica, Albert Sosa, a disabled Army veteran drove up from San Antonio daily, sometimes bringing his 11-year-old grandson Mason, who learned that one of his friends had perished while vacationing with grandparents. When asked why he brought his grandson, Sosa said, “It’s important for Mason to see this.”
Every day, more help came. Volunteers showed up to prepare and serve meals. Other feeding organizations partnered with him for a few days. People brought canopies, ice chests, chairs and other supplies for his feeding station. Businesses and individuals continued donating money through his company website. Target gave him plates and other similar items. A rancher drove up and dropped off elk sausage. A school principal brought squash from his garden and a farmer brought 20 pounds of jalapeño peppers. Knights of Columbus members from Wimberley, Ted Woods and Mark Jones came, bringing barbecued briskets that Jones cooked and donated. Sometime during Ramon’s 21-day sojourn, a local police officer gave him a room to sleep in his home.
The days began to take on a rhythm. “We’d prepare in the morning and continue to serve until 7, 8 or 9 p.m.” In the heat and humidity, it was hard work, “but we were committed to serve until the search and rescue teams came in at night,” Ramon said. “I was committed to the community and to the people who gave me the money to be here.”
Soon he was serving 700, 1000, 1200 meals a day and the numbers kept rising. Every day he made trips to buy more and more food at HEB in Fredericksburg and Kerrville. On one of those trips, Ramon rolled up to the checkout counter with a basket full of tortillas and another one heaped with asparagus. Surprised, the young lady at the register said, “You must really, really like asparagus.”
“After I told her what I was doing, it took her a second to understand that it wasn’t all for me.”
At home, word spread quickly among the Wimberley Knights of Columbus and members of St Mary’s Church. K of C brother, Jones, said he first heard that Ramon, a newer member of the K of C whom he’d met from the previous Hunters Night Out fundraiser, “was feeding a lot of people near Kerrville.” Jones drove from Wimberley on four occasions to lend a hand, bring food, money and in the last week, a generator. When asked what motivated him to come, Jones said, “Arturo’s wife Jessica sings in the St Mary’s choir and it got around church that he was up here and could use some help. Besides,” Jones added, “In the Knights, that’s just what we do.”
During his trips to Centerpoint, Jones met the many people who came for one of Ramon’s home cooked meals. He met search and recovery teams from all over the country, Frontline Heroes Outdoors, Navy Seals, nearby families, the Mexican dive team from Nuevo Leon, “Protección Civil,” a couple of Centerpoint athletic coaches, firefighters, Texas State Troopers who guarded equipment from looters, mental health workers, sheriff’s deputies, United Cajun Navy members from Louisiana and many others. Each of them received Ramon’s warm smile, modest but radiant support, and a delicious meal. All of them will remember that he was there for them during many dark days, which for most, will be the worst experience of their lives.
Two weeks began to stretch into three. Recovery efforts slowed as all but three, and then two, victims were recovered. The long hours and the heat took a toll. Exhaustion and dehydration persisted. On day 20, Ramon let it be known that his last day would be the next, Friday, July 25. Jones and Bill Warne, another K of C brother, came with a trailer to help Ramon pack up and return home.
In all, Ramon and his volunteers served more than 17,500 meals. One of the Centerpoint Volunteer Fire Department crew members who gratefully received many meals from him said, “His food was amazing. We couldn’t have done this without him. He was here every single day in the heat and humidity, working harder than most anyone around. We just couldn’t have done this without him. He is part of us now.”
