Fat Head Meats helping Jesus House

Feb. 25—It all started with a simple barbecue sandwich.

One day, after leaving Sam's, Jesus House Executive Director Donny Kyker saw that the Fat Head Meats Food Truck was there and after placing an order, he found his new favorite barbeque place.

"We grabbed some of their foods and it's one of the best barbecue sandwiches I ever had, hands down," Kyker said. "I fell in love with it."

From there, a friendship was forged between him and the food truck owners Junior Hernandez and Rory Couch.

That friendship will help restock the shelves with canned goods at the Jesus House Odessa this week.

On Saturday, Jesus House and Fat Head Meats will have a food drive from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. at 6101 W. Highway 80 East, where anyone who brings in five cans of food can get a free brisket sandwich.

Last week's winter freeze wiped out the Jesus House Odessa outside pantry and it wasn't long before they were in need of help.

Hernandez said he stumbled across a Facebook post from Kyker, asking the community for help and it wasn't long before he and Couch thought up the idea to help out.

"We saw that the pantry was empty," Hernandez said. "He's been a frequent customer of ours. We're friends on Facebook and we all jumped on it. We wanted to help. He's lived in this community all of our lives. This community is strong. We come together and that was our opportunity to help out."

Fat Head Meats has been open for just a little over five months now.

Hernandez and Couch, who are both long time Permian Basin residents, began the food truck business shortly after being laid off from their previous jobs.

Their business though, has been closed for the last two weeks as they await their new shipping container.

Hernandez and Couch were originally planning on having their grand re-opening this Saturday but will now push it back to next week in order to do this week's fundraiser.

"We've been waiting for our shipping container and we thought this would be more important than our grand opening," Hernandez said. "That's what we did. Now we're making sure that we have everything ready. We're dotting the I's and crossing the T's for this event."

Hernandez is excited about Saturday's event that can help get the word out about their new location as well as to help out a friend.

"It'll help because we're at a new location," Hernandez said. "We have a new building but the primary reason is that it's been about helping the community out. Donny has become friend. He donates his time. We donate when we can, if we're lucky. He does it every day. That's a true guy."

For Couch and Hernandez, giving back to the community has been a big part of their business.

"It feels great," Couch said. "Really, it's what we're supposed to do. We've had a lot of help to get to where we are today. It's what we're supposed to do. People have helped us out. Everyone is a big part of why we've been able to grow as a small company with no money. To us, it's what we're supposed to do."

Kyker says they've already received around 2,400 pounds of canned foods. He's estimating on Saturday that they'll get another 2,000 pounds.

"It keeps us in business," Kyker said. "We were basically shut down. We didn't have any food to hand out. Mid cities and other organizations like Fat Head Meats stepped up and restocked our pantry. We have four families tomorrow to get food. Without all of this, we couldn't do this."

Other than the pantry food being wiped out in the freeze, Kyker said they were still fortunate not to lose water or power at the Jesus House last week.

"We were really blessed last week," Kyker said. "We just lost our canned food pantry. All we're doing now is reaching out to the community to the ones that were hit hard."

Kyker says all canned goods are accepted, just as long as they aren't expired.

People can drop them off on Saturday or anytime Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to noon at the Jesus House location at 1335 E. Sixth St., in Odessa.