{"id":63551,"date":"2025-11-24T23:51:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T23:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/63551\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T23:51:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T23:51:06","slug":"homeless-mother-finds-community-support-at-el-vago-thanksgiving-giveaway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/63551\/","title":{"rendered":"Homeless mother finds community support at El Vago Thanksgiving giveaway"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CORPUS CHRISTI, Tx \u2014 Chatter was heard around the block on Monday afternoon at El Vago Burger &amp; BBQ. Music played, neighbors danced, and families waited patiently for a Thanksgiving plate.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s where I met Regina Smith, who told me she loves to watch KRIS 6 News when she can. After a few minutes of talking, she opened up about why she was really in line.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m homeless. So I know for a fact in this season\u2026 with everything going on, community was my go-to. Me and my baby slept on the side of buildings. I know what it feels like to be homeless. I know what it feels like to bathe in toilet water. I know what it feels like,&#8221; Regina Smith, Neighbor, said.<\/p>\n<p>Homeless mother finds hope at Westside Thanksgiving giveaway after sleeping in cemetery night before<\/p>\n<p>Originally from Houston, Regina and her daughter took a bus to Corpus Christi a year ago, looking for a better life.<\/p>\n<p>She told me many people don&#8217;t realize she&#8217;s homeless and wants others to know homelessness doesn&#8217;t have a &#8220;look.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday night, Regina slept on a tomb in a local cemetery because she had nowhere else to go.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Community is a gift. So that&#8217;s definitely something I&#8217;m looking forward to this season,&#8221; Smith said.<\/p>\n<p>Regina heard about this food drive from others in the same situation. She admits she didn&#8217;t plan to be here but got on the wrong bus \u2014 and it brought her right to this giveaway.<\/p>\n<p>Regina says it&#8217;s her faith in God that keeps her moving forward.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And I don&#8217;t know what it was. But I&#8217;m so grateful and so thankful for this season,&#8221; Smith said.<\/p>\n<p>To Regina, moments like this feel like answered prayers \u2014 neighbors helping neighbors exactly when they need it most.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;God comes through people. Our pastor always told us that,&#8221; Smith said.<\/p>\n<p>I lost contact with Regina shortly after our interview, but if you or someone you know is in her shoes, we have resources up on our website KRIS6.com to help.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone I spoke with in line had a different story, but the message was the same: this help couldn&#8217;t have come at a better time.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>For the latest local news updates, <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kristv.com\/news\/local-news\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">click here<\/a>, or download the <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kristv.com\/about-us\/kris-6-apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">KRIS 6 News App.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Catch all the <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/KRIS6News\/videos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">KRIS 6 News stories and more on our YouTube page<\/a>. Subscribe today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CORPUS CHRISTI, Tx \u2014 Chatter was heard around the block on Monday afternoon at El Vago Burger &amp;&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156,1051],"class_list":{"0":"post-63551","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news","11":"tag-westside-corpus-christi"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}