The following was written in 2011, for a collection of stories published in 2014 upon the 30th anniversary of Feed the Hungry San Miguel.
Olivia’s Story: A Godfather, Two New Orleans Characters, and an Angel
Dianne Walta Hart Interview with Olivia Múñiz Rodríguez
2011
Olivia Múñiz Rodríguez, Feed the Hungry San Miguel’s Program Director, credits her professional success to a godfather, two colorful characters right out of New Orleans, and a man protected by an angel. But it took her a while to meet them.
A Sanmiguelense, Olivia studied in Mexico City at the Instituto Anglo Mexicano de Cultura, returning home to teach English in several San Miguel schools.
Then a man she calls her godfather, the late Reverend Robert (Bob) Herbert, hired one of Olivia’s brothers who was an architect to design his home in Colonia San Antonio. Olivia remembers this as occurring in the early ‘90s. Bob, as everyone called him and whom Olivia describes as a “jolly Santa Claus-like person,” served as a deacon at St. Paul’s and was instrumental in the early years of Feed the Hungry. In fact, according to Olivia, he “would go to the United States and beg for money for Feed the Hungry.” In 1995, Bob asked her to help bag the dried food for Feed the Hungry. He certainly did not know how his request would change Olivia’s life.
Bob, using his considerable influence, introduced her to the colorful characters from New Orleans, Alice Foster Minton and her husband Joe Minton. Alice was in charge of much of what was going on and Joe did much of the driving. Bob knew Feed the Hungry could use Olivia’s expertise in language and culture to help with the charity’s four kitchens.
Soon after their initial introduction and at Alice’s request, Olivia quit teaching and, as a Feed the Hungry staff member, turned her efforts instead to buying the food, visiting the kitchens, and designing the menus.
As the need grew, especially after the financial crisis in Mexico in the mid-nineties, Joe told Olivia that they had to find an angel. As luck would have it, he knew one: Tony Adlerbert. Well, maybe Joe didn’t use the word “angel,” but Olivia swears that Tony has one if, indeed, he’s not an angel himself! In Mexico – and elsewhere – an angel refers to someone for whom everything always turns out all right. Therefore, it is important to have an angel hovering around.
Olivia didn’t know Tony at that point, but in late 1995 when Joe asked her to accompany him to Tony’s office on Tenerías, she went along. No appointment, they just walked in and said to Tony, “Let’s talk.” Then Joe proceeded to tell Tony that, in order to survive, Feed the Hungry needed his help. Joe’s argument must have been convincing because soon after the meeting, Olivia says that Tony started having cocktail parties and creating other events to raise money. Eventually his wife, Shirley Adlerbert, became involved in Feed the Hungry, and the organization began to grow in a significant way.
Alice says that from that moment on, Tony, Shirley, and Olivia “became everything” and the kitchens grew from four to six or seven. Olivia started assuming more and more responsibility, and it seemed to her “that every two weeks, Feed the Hungry grew.”
Growth required change, and most of that Olivia welcomed, especially when it came to the place near the train station where they bagged the dry food. She remembers it as “an ugly horrible bodega that had rats.” One day Shirley told her that Dr. Arthur and Carol Kornhaber were donating a house located on the corner of Cinco de Mayo and Las Moras. She asked Olivia when she wanted to move, and Olivia quickly answered, “Yesterday.” She and Joe loaded up the food and the scales. In one trip, much to her relief, they were out of there.
Olivia points with pride to the menus used by Feed the Hungry that have constantly evolved as more is known about nutrition. Olivia remembers that even though Feed the Hungry started with beans and rice, it expanded to a menu much like the one she was served as a child. The cooks themselves invented dishes or brought their favorite ones to Feed the Hungry. Board members once objected to the cold weather drink made with oats and hot chocolate, but Olivia reminded them that it was atole, Mexico’s favorite drink; the food had to be nutritious and also please the Mexican palate. Olivia notes that even as early as 1997, there were chayotes, melons, and carrots on the menu.
In 2000, for example, menus were changed twice a year from a “cold” one for August through January to a “hot” one from February through July. In 2006, the cooks took a cooking class and began using more spices. Olivia is quoted in the Atención newspaper, saying, “My favorite dish is the lentils with vegetables, cinnamon, garlic and lemon juice. On Mondays we prepare lentils and rice in our kitchens and the new recipe … is much better than the way we had been cooking. I am sure the little ones will love it.”
Feed the Hungry was on its way to developing a new nutritional standard as they convinced the parents and then the children that even more attention needed to be given to their well-being. Starting in 2008, and at the suggestion of the head cook and the nutritionist, the menus began to be altered three or four times a year in order to adjust to the cost of fruits and vegetables, the weather, and the needs of the children.
Olivia has kept her focus on the mission of feeding the school children. She says, “Every day has been exciting, an adventure, full of learning, making friends. Sixteen years have flown by in the blink of an eye. I love having a job where I help people, where I’m part of a team.”
Even the best of jobs has difficult moments, however, and for Olivia one such moment was when she went to one of Feed the Hungry’s poorest villages: “I thought I’d cry because the children were so poor, dirty, with dry rough skin, and white blemishes on their faces. Their clothes were threadbare.”
That experience may have been the worst, but Olivia testifies to other difficulties she encountered in the rural villages called ranchos. They all might look the same to foreigners, but not to Olivia. Of Feed the Hungry’s 35 kitchens, 23 are in ranchos and Olivia describes them as each being different from the next one. “Different in the way they live, their religions, the amount of water available, and the distance children have to walk to get to school (in some cases, 2 ½ hours). Some have cooperating school principals and others unfortunately don’t. Some ranchos have more absentee spouses, more familial arguments, more murders, and differing abilities to cooperate.”
Today Olivia is responsible for all organizational aspects including the kitchens, the kitchen supervisors, the human resources management, as well as the relationships with non-profit organizations, the public schools, DIF-Desarrollo Integral de la Familia, and the city government.
Had Olivia seen today’s job description in 1995, she says she would have run, that’s how complex it is. “But now, after years, I’ve become accustomed to it. Computers, kitchen supervisors, all that, but fortunately, from the beginning, I was organized. When I saw a need, I added things, following the rules of Feed the Hungry. Organizing comes easy to me, but still,” she pauses, “after one particular event, I couldn’t sleep for two nights.” With a laugh, she continues and says, “The label of Feed the Hungry makes me proud. I’ve been here from almost the beginning, I’ve seen how it has grown, and I love what I do.”
“I’m very lucky,” she says, “with the board members, who are like friends. They respect my job, my person.”
Her friendship with Bob lasted until his death in 2008 in the United States at age 82. Olivia is still close to Alice Foster Minton and her husband Joe, and every day she works with Tony and Shirley Adlerbert. A godfather, a couple of characters from New Orleans, and a fellow (and his wife) with an angel hovering nearby have helped Olivia make Feed the Hungry San Miguel what it is today.
(Postscript: Now 2024, Olivia is still Feed the Hungry San Miguel’s Program Director, of nearly 30 years.)
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