Long after the last bite

For most of the year, hunger is invisible.

The families who visit Casa de Peregrinos don't arrive carrying signs announcing their struggles. They are grandparents raising grandchildren, parents working multiple jobs, seniors stretching fixed incomes and neighbors trying to make it through another difficult month. Every month, nearly 5,000 families receive food through Casa de Peregrinos and its outreach programs across Doña Ana County. During school breaks, demand grows even more as families lose access to school meals and turn to programs designed to help fill the gap.

Most people never see that reality. What they do see is Taste of Las Cruces. They see crowded aisles at the convention center. They see friends gathering around tables. They see restaurant owners proudly serving signature dishes and experimental creations. They see silent auction items, community sponsors and hundreds of people moving from booth to booth in search of their next favorite bite.

They smell barbecue smoke, roasted chile, fresh tortillas and desserts.

What they don't always see is that the entire evening is built around feeding people who may never walk through those doors.

"It's just a collection of different types of people from the community," Casa de Peregrinos Executive Director Lorenzo Alba said.

Bank employees sit beside business owners. Families share tables with retirees. Community leaders mingle with first-time attendees. Restaurants compete for attention while simultaneously cheering one another on. For one evening, much of Las Cruces gathers in a single room.

What makes Taste of Las Cruces remarkable isn't simply the food. It's what happens after the event is over.

The proceeds help fund food distributions throughout the year. Restaurant owners become donors, volunteers and advocates. Sponsors become long-term partners. An evening built around eating becomes a way to ensure others have enough to eat. For Alba, that connection has always felt natural.

"Money for food takes a lot of schools of thought and goes back to food into the community," he said. "It just kind of fit in perfectly."

That simple idea has sustained one of Las Cruces' most successful community events for nearly two decades.

Ironically, hunger wasn't the original focus. The idea for Taste of Las Cruces arrived through members of the Rotary Club of Las Cruces who had seen a similar event elsewhere and believed it could work here. From the beginning, organizers envisioned it as an annual fundraiser that would bring local restaurants together while generating money for worthwhile causes.

The first beneficiaries included organizations fighting hunger in the community, including El Caldito Soup Kitchen. As the event grew, Rotarians found themselves increasingly drawn to the connection between the food being served and the people who needed it most.

"I just think it's so cool, this whole concept of tying food to food," longtime Rotarian Bill Harty said. "We're providing food, we're going to serve food. Food is a fundraiser."

The idea resonated. What began as a Rotary project evolved into a long-term partnership with Casa de Peregrinos, which gradually assumed much of the marketing, administration and restaurant outreach necessary to grow the event. The Rotary clubs built the foundation. Casa de Peregrinos helped transform it into one of the community's signature annual gatherings.

"The history really is the Rotarians building something for the community," Alba said. "They really wanted to do that."

Today, Casa de Peregrinos handles much of the work behind the scenes, but Alba is quick to credit the organization's Rotary roots.

"We still tout it as a Rotarian event," he said. "We don't ever want to take away from the history of it. We want to make sure that as much as we manage everything, we never forget the Rotarian side of how this thing was built."

The event's growth mirrors the growth of the relationships behind it. Years ago, recruiting restaurants often meant organizers spending afternoons visiting local establishments and making their case face-to-face.

"We'd go visit the restaurants and go have lunch there," Alba recalled. "We wanted to show them that we're with you. We're in solidarity with you as a small business. We want to be here for you."

Those conversations created partnerships that extended far beyond a single evening. Restaurants that first joined for exposure often became year-round supporters. Some volunteered. Others donated. Many became advocates for Casa de Peregrinos and its mission.

"They become donors, they become our volunteers, they become our advocates," Alba said. "Because they know that when push comes to shove that we're going to be there for them to lift them up."

No one illustrates that better than Jim Leon.

The owner of Jim Bobs BBQ first participated in Taste of Las Cruces in 2019, barely a year after opening his restaurant. When organizers approached him about joining the event, he saw both an opportunity to introduce people to his business and a chance to help his community.

"It was the community aspect," Leon said. "I wanted people to know about us. But I also wanted to help people. When they come in and say what the money goes to, it's like, how can you say no? It's worth taking a loss of a day of income to help the community."

The first year, Jim Bobs BBQ kept things simple. Leon brought pulled pork sandwiches and cut them into smaller portions for sampling.

Today, the event has become a showcase for creativity. Last year, the restaurant created pulled pork and cream cheese-filled crepes topped with apple chutney exclusively for Taste of Las Cruces. This year, Leon plans to serve smoked and fried French chicken wings, mini cornbreads and Texas-style chili — dishes designed specifically for the event rather than pulled from the restaurant's everyday menu.

Unlike last year, when Jim never intended to add the labor-intensive crepes to his regular menu, this year’s offering is something he’s considering as a menu item.

Every year, Jim Bobs BBQ closes for the day so employees can volunteer at the event.

"Everybody volunteers," Leon said. "We don't make any money. So be it. We'll make money in the long run."

What began as a fundraising event has become something of a reunion for participating restaurants. Owners wander the convention center sampling one another's dishes. New businesses meet longtime participants. Plates are exchanged between booths. Competitors become collaborators.

The public sees a showcase. The restaurants experience a community. The event's success has only accelerated that sense of momentum.

Following the pandemic, organizers worked hard to maintain participation as restaurants struggled with staffing shortages and inflation. Yet many remained committed. Today, the challenge is often finding room for everyone.

"When I started, we had 32 restaurants," Casa de Peregrinos Deputy Director Bianca Menchaca said. "This year, it's the most we've ever had at 34 restaurants."

The shift is evident in another way as well.

"Now restaurants reach out to us that they want to participate," Menchaca said.

Support from partners such as Ben E. Keith, a major food distributor, has helped make that growth possible by providing supplies, ingredients and logistical support that reduce barriers for participating restaurants. Sponsors purchase tables. Community organizations contribute auction items. Local businesses encourage employees to attend.

The result is an event that routinely attracts hundreds of guests while generating tens of thousands of dollars in support for hunger relief efforts.

But the real measure of success isn't found in attendance numbers or ticket sales. It's found in the families who leave Casa de Peregrinos with enough food to make a meaningful difference.

"We don't want people to come here just for a small basket," Alba said. "We want them to come here for a minimum of about 100 pounds of food because we figure that's going to make a big impact on their lives right away."

That impact is what has sustained Taste of Las Cruces for nearly 20 years.

Not a celebrity chef. Not a signature dish. Not a marketing campaign. The event endures because hundreds of volunteers, restaurateurs, sponsors, Rotarians and community members have collectively decided that feeding neighbors matters.

For one evening each year, those relationships gather in the same room.

People arrive looking for great food. They leave having helped provide something far more important.

For one evening, hundreds of people gather to enjoy the best food Las Cruces has to offer. Long after the food is gone, the last booth is packed away, and the convention center grows quiet, what remains is the meals that keep giving.