Volunteers hand out bags of food to visitors as they leave the Convoy of Hope. Richard Zagrzecki photo

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Amid the dark clouds and cold, wet weather Saturday was a Convoy of Hope at the Fort Bend County Fairgrounds.

“There are so many people in need in our community, and so many ways they can get services, but they just don’t know it,” said Deborah Prihoda, lead pastor at First Assembly of God and Fort Bend Convoy of Hope coordinator.

More than 60 churches from different denominations helped plan the event, with numerous companies and organizations partnering and more than 800 volunteers in jackets and hooded sweatshirts helping.

“We really came for the health serves and to see what help we could find. It’s hard to find help,” said Ashley Garcia, who took her 1-month-old son and her mother, Lucy Estrada.

Estrada discovered a low-income dental clinic in her neighborhood with help from Jeanne Hanks of St. Luke’s Episcopal Health Charities, one of dozens of agencies, that set up tables in a shelter.

The event also offered free health screenings, free haircuts, entertainment, moonwalks, a prayer tent and 40,000 pounds of free food.

“This means we’ve got something to eat,” said Amelia Rubio, who carried out two bags of food. She’s not working, her husband is only working part time, and money is tight. “This really helps. Every little bit helps.”

“We’re not saying we’re giving them enough food to eat forever,” said Dan Clark, a representative from the national Convoy of Hope office in Springfield, Mo. “What we want to do is offer a ray of hope. People out there have real physical needs, and we’re trying to offer them help and hope.”

Nonprofit Convoy of Hope focuses on feeding the hungry and providing drinking water after national disasters. For years, it has done community events, but this is its last year.

So the group selected a handful of communities to do a Convoy of Hope, including Fort Bend, which held one in 2007. Organizers expected 5,000 people to attend.

Fort Bend churches will continue to do community events, but they won’t be Convoy of Hope, Prihoda said.

Feeling God working
Army vet Joel Davis was injured while serving and plans to retire next year. He wants to go back to school and get a job working with children, but he didn’t know where to start. Shontaria Davis is a stay-at-home mom who wants to go back to work when the youngest of their three children enters grade school next year.

So the Davises went to the job fair. At the Workforce Solutions table, Shontaria Davis got a calendar of workshops and programs that can prepare her to re-enter the work force.
That it was a church-organized event was important to the Davises.

“This is a good outing for our family,” Joel Davis said. “And everyone is so nice.”

That was by design.

“Each visitor is a guest of honor,” Prihoda said. “We want them to walk into these fairgrounds and feel God’s love.”

More than a number
Terry Montalbo was recently laid off from his job working distribution for a plastics company. He came to visit the job fair, but first stopped for a haircut from James Autry II.

The free haircuts for him, his son and his nephew saved Montablo $36.

“This is great, especially right now, when people are losing jobs,” he said.

Montalbo’s son, Anselmo Aguilar, said he would have been a home, playing video games and “being bored,” if not for the event. He was eyeing the moonwalks.

Autry is an executive with an ambulance company who cuts his son’s and father’s hair. His pastor at Greater Zion Missionary Baptist Church asked if he’d be willing to cut hair at the 2007 Convoy of Hope event and again at this one.