With the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown, these are scary times for Hispanic immigrants, but those with culinary talents got some good news Thursday in South Bend.
The city’s redevelopment commission approved the administration’s request to give the Hispanic advocacy nonprofit LaCasa de Amistad $267,000 to expand their kitchen to serve food truck operators.
LaCasa Executive Director Juan Constantino explains the need.
”Certainly with our immigrant population, many times when folks first get here and as they’re looking for work, many folks turn to food," Constantino says. "A lot of people that are food vendors or would like to be have got different items or cuisines that they used to make back at home and want to bring that here, and ultimately help them generate a revenue for their household, for their families.”
Constantino says the La Casa has been researching and planning the project for two years. They found the area lacks a commissary kitchen for food truck operators to rent time for food prep.
LaCasa for the past year has been bringing in a certified instructor to offer food truck vendors state-required food safety classes with materials in Spanish.
“So we’ve already been doing some of the legwork to support our food entrepreneurs within our Latino immigrant community and this really positions us in a place to now have the equipment and infrastructure to fully support them.”
Constantino plans to have the kitchen up and running by this fall.
