A Sandwich, a Carton of Milk, and a Lesson I Never Forgot

Hurricane Beulah hit South Texas on September 20, 1967. I was seven years old, just starting second grade. My older sister was entering fourth grade, and my mother was the department head of the home economics department at McAllen High School.

After the storm, the school became a shelter for families displaced by flooding. My mother was called to the school to help prepare meals for those staying there. She loaded my sister and me into the car and drove through high water to get to the school. I remember the water in the streets and the worry that the car might not make it through.

When we arrived, other teachers were already there. Almost immediately, an assembly line formed. Ham sandwiches were made quickly, one after another, and I was given a job. I helped wrap the sandwiches in wax paper. I suppose we did not have zip-top plastic bags back then, or at least they were not what we used that day.

Tables were set up outside the home economics hallway, and families in the shelter began forming a line. I was told to hand out small cartons of milk. While a small group of us passed out sandwiches and milk, others were already in the kitchen preparing a warm meal for dinner.

I remember the tired faces of the people coming through the line. I also remember how grateful they were for something as simple as a sandwich and a carton of milk.

Then I saw someone I knew from school.

He was a migrant child, what we called a “migrant kid” at the time. In South Texas in the 1960s, migrant children came in and out of our school throughout the year. Their parents were migrant farmworkers, following the growing and harvest seasons from crop to crop and town to town. One month, those children might be sitting beside us in class. The next, their desks would be empty, their families already gone to the next field, the next job, the next place where work could be found.

I was surprised to see him in that shelter line. My house was high and dry. Flooding was not really an issue in my neighborhood. But his home had flooded, and his family had come to the school for safety, shelter, and food.

Later, I told my mother I had seen him and how strange it felt to see someone I knew standing in that line. She explained that he lived in the “labor camp,” and that the camp had flooded. That was what we called them then — labor camps — rows of simple housing provided for migrant farmworker families.

I think that was the first time I understood, even as a child, that disaster does not affect everyone the same way. The storm had come through the same community, but it had not left the same damage behind. Some of us went home to dry houses and familiar beds. Others stood in a school hallway waiting for a sandwich, a carton of milk, and a safe place to sleep.

When Ben Milam Elementary School reopened, he was not there. I never knew what happened to him. Maybe his family moved on with the crops. Maybe they returned to Mexico. Maybe they found a way out of farm labor. I do not know.

But I remembered him.

I remembered his face in that line. I remembered the humility of need and the dignity of receiving help. I remembered the teachers and volunteers who did not ask complicated questions before responding. They saw hungry, displaced families, and they got to work.

That memory has stayed with me for nearly six decades.

Today, as Feeding Louisiana works with the state’s five regional food banks, I still think about that school hallway in McAllen. I think about the people who step forward after storms, floods, job losses, illness, and family crises. I think about the children who may not have the words to explain what is happening around them, but who remember who showed up.

Food assistance is not just about calories. It is about stability. It is about dignity. It is about reminding people that they have not been forgotten.

August in Louisiana is a season of preparation. Families are getting ready for a new school year. Communities are watching the tropics. Food banks are preparing for daily hunger and the possibility of disaster response. The work is both ordinary and urgent: stock shelves, strengthen partnerships, support volunteers, prepare distributions, and make sure food is available when families need it most.

I did not know it at seven years old, but that day at McAllen High School taught me something I would carry for the rest of my life: when people are hungry, frightened, or displaced, the right response is to serve.

Sometimes that service begins with something as simple as a ham sandwich wrapped in wax paper and a small carton of milk.

And sometimes, that small act of care becomes a memory that shapes a life.

Pat R. Van Burkleo, Executive Director