H-E-B Donates $75,000 to Corpus Christi Meals on Wheels, Largest Gift in Program\u2019s History<\/a><\/p>\nCorpus Christi FC joined forces with Bella\u2019Aroma Caf\u00e9 to hand out nearly 200 thanksgiving meals to residents who may not know where their next meal is coming from. For Bella\u2019Aroma owner Monica Mangiarulo, it\u2019s a simple act that carries deep meaning.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody deserves to have, like, a warm meal,\u201d she said. \u201cSometimes the simple things in life that we miss is, like, having a warm meal is such a simple thing that sometimes because we have it, we forget that there’s other people out there that are not as fortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mangiarulo said giving back feels like an obligation to the community that has supported her family\u2019s business from the beginning.<\/p>\n
\u201cUs as a small business, we are blessed enough to have grown in three years to three locations,\u201d she said. \u201cI feel for us, it\u2019s natural, and it’s almost a responsibility to give back\u2026 We gotta give back to this beautiful community that shows up for us. We’re gonna show up for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Corpus Christi FC, the partnership was a chance to connect with a community they\u2019re still getting to know. The club has existed since 2017, previously competing in a pre-professional league, but is now taking a major step forward by joining USL League One, a fully professional league with teams competing nationwide and players on full-time contracts.<\/p>\n
CCFC Communications Director Eran Hami said Tuesday\u2019s event shows what the club wants to represent as it enters a new era.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you saw what it meant to these people who may not get a quality meal at all times, and we just want to show that we’re here for the community,\u201d Hami said. \u201cWe’ve been around since 2017, but people haven’t known about us.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that community outreach will be a constant focus moving forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re going to be here in January, February, March \u2014 every single month of the year. Christmas, we\u2019ll be doing stuff as well,\u201d he said. \u201cYou’re going to be seeing our faces a lot more\u2026 We\u2019re not just going to have an impact on the field. We’re going to be a force in the community to help people out in any way we possibly can. Today, it just happened to be making a whole bunch of turkey meals and giving them away.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the heart of that mission, Hami said, is reflecting the values of the city they now represent professionally.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur team is going to reflect the values of Corpus Christi, and those are familial values, and that’s what we want to show people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even in the offseason, both organizations say there are plenty of beautiful ways to unite a community through the power of \u201cthe beautiful game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Corpus Christi FC, the Coastal Bend’s first professional soccer team, and Bella\u2019Aroma Caf\u00e9 teamed up to give back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-65217","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"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65217","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=65217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}