Hola Palm Beach: Special Report Feeding the Hungry in Palm Beach

Hola Palm Beach with Rolando Chang Barrero
SPECIAL REPORT
FEEDING THE HUNGRY IN PALM BEACH
Interview with Omar Portocarrero the founder of

FEEDING THE HUNGRY INC.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Hola Palm Beach with Rolando Chang Barrero
SPECIAL REPORT
FEEDING THE HUNGRY IN PALM BEACH
Interview with Omar Portocarrero the founder of

FEEDING THE HUNGRY INC.

About the founder:

My name is Omar Portocarrero, one of the pastors at Grace Fellowship, West Palm Beach, Florida 33411. I was ordained at Grace Fellowship in 2009 and was working with Grace en Espanol, the Hispanic branch of Grace. As a team member of Grace en Espanol, the team used to go to the Casa del Monte, a mobile home community at the corners of Jog Road and Forest Hill Blvd. in West Palm Beach, FL. Casa del Monte mobile home park has around 670 units and over 5000 people live there including over 1000 kids. Grace en Espanol used to go there every Thursday evening to serve the community and also to

preach the Word of God. I noticed that the community was not being served adequately by Grace going there once a week. Grace uses the club house of Casa del Monte to meet with the residents and have their once a week ministry. It was then that I noticed we were not making the impact needed to really help the community. In 2011 a double wide trailer became available in front of Casa del Monte’s club house and after conversing with my brother Marco, we decided to purchase it and form “Feeding the Hungry, Inc.” a non-profit corporation whose mission statement states “We seek to share the love of Jesus Christ by meeting the spiritual and physical needs of human beings deprived of nourishment and opportunities.” Our goal was to make relationships with the residents of Casa del Monte in order to improve their quality of life. The community is around 80% Hispanic and came from all over Latin America.

The ministry was able to start a tutoring program in partnership with Palm Beach Atlantic University as I saw a great need because of the inability of the parents being able to help their children with school work due to the language barrier. We have tutoring twice a week from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30p.m. and we had had success as many of the attendees had made the honor roll for the first time. We also have ESOL classes once a week and the residents received it with grateful hearts. We distribute food every week, it was once in the beginning and now we do it twice a week and help over 2800 people a month in this endeavor. We are able to distribute furniture, clothes, toys, electronics, and any other help that is needed including financial help for rent, utilities, and medicine.