CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Pete Treviño is known in Corpus Christi for helping out the community in times of need the way he knows best: barbecue.
“When you have a calling, you have to answer it,” Treviño said. "There’s no greater person in this world than the Man above us, so he puts something in your path, you’ve got to do it. There’s no thinking about it, there’s no questions asked.”
Treviño has held barbecue fundraisers in the past, and he said after Tuesday’s tragedy in Uvalde, people reached out to see if he was going to do anything for the community, and how they could help.
“I just did what I do, and reached out to the community on social media and Facebook, and it’s been overwhelming,” he said. “People have been giving calls, texts, donations, coming to drop stuff off. (Thursday) is going to be a busy day, because they’re going to be coming in left and right all day today dropping off stuff for it.”
Treviño will be traveling to Uvalde Friday afternoon with his smoker and a group of 15-20 people, and setting up Saturday to make barbecue plates for the community.
“Anybody in that town, first responders, anybody that’s hungry that’s been putting in hours and hours of time trying to help out everybody over there,” Treviño said.
Thursday, Treviño prepared to make the trip, ensuring his smoker was ready to go, gathering all the supplies people dropped off at his home, and traveling to pick up whatever else he needed.
He said he could not do what he does without the community’s help.
“There’s a good amount of people who come together and help me, from the cooking, to the organizing, getting it together, because it’s a lot,” he said. “Some are people who have helped me over the years, and some are just good people that want to help. they feel the pain of every parent, every grandparent, brother, sister. It’s good to know people want to help.”
Treviño does not yet know where he will set his smoker up, but plans to do so wherever he can help the most people.
“No matter if it’s 30 minutes from this city, or 500 miles away from this city, when it’s the right thing to do, we’re going to come together, and we’re going to help out our fellow Texans,” he said.
Treviño plans to leave for Uvalde at around 3 p.m. Friday afternoon, and said people can drop supplies off until he leaves.
People can reach out to him on Facebook to see what else he needs before he heads up to Uvalde.
