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A Food Truck Fest for Open Doors

If you like food, or beer, or wine, or live music, arts and crafts vendors, or supporting a local charity just by having a fun time in a beautiful place on a warm, sunny day… then Saturday, April 16th is going to be right down your alley. WMRA’s Christopher Clymer Kurtz has the story.

[Sound of sizzling meat]

This is the decade-old Tacos El Primo, the first food truck in Harrisonburg, still under the original ownership of Veronica and Jose Panigua.

VERONICA PANIGUA: I wish you could also transmit the smell so you can get the flavor of it.

JOSE PANIGUA: You need to be here to... It's hard to describe.

VERONICA: We are from Mexico and it is authentic Mexican food, and our tacos are street tacos you'll find in Mexico, so they're the real deal.

This Saturday the Paniaguas’ food truck will again be at the Food Truck Fest at Sunny Slopes Farm just outside of Harrisonburg. The Fest benefits Open Doors, which provides nighttime shelter to adults during winter months.

VERONICA: We like that you're actually getting to enjoy like a fun day out and you're also helping. We're contributing somehow to the cause, with all they do, it's really good. It's just like open hands you kind of reach your hand out to whoever's in need without looking to who. And then it's a little chain that when you do something good, something good always comes back to you.

In this case, that little chain that brings good back to you might just be the good deed itself, because this year’s Fest will boast 15 food trucks, 25 arts and crafts vendors, and local wines, cider, and beers. Attendees can get out of the sun or rain in the big tent, or they can bring blankets or lawn chairs and sit back to enjoy live music from Everyday People, the new modern country cover band BonFire Union, and this band, Little Walter and the Convictions.

[Excerpt of Little Walter and the Convictions, “Have Mercy”]

Last year’s Food Truck Fest was Open Door’s first go at having a signature annual fundraiser, and it netted the organization $36,000, or 30% of its annual budget. Open Doors executive director Rachel Hundley hopes that this year’s festival will continue the trend of making the nonprofit more financially stable and help it expand its services to people in need.

RACHEL HUNDLEY: We are opening doors to those most in need in our community that are normally not available to them and faith communities that host the shelter on a weekly basis are opening their doors to members of their community who they wouldn't normally interact with.

Board member Jasmine Hardesty says the Fest is a chance to see everybody come together and celebrate, contribute to, and honor the work of Open Doors.

JASMINE HARDESTY: Sunny Slope Farm is a gorgeous, rolling hill farm. In 360 views, you can see rolling mountains and bright green landscaping. It's stunning.

Mark Caherty is a Harrisonburg resident who knows firsthand the value of Open Doors: he was a guest for more than five years. He never expected to be homeless, but a sequence of health and other issues took him from a professional life to being crippled and nonfunctional.

MARK CAHERTY: When that stuff comes out of the sky, the meteorite hits you, you're hit. That's pretty much it. No rhyme or reason that I can figure out.

Caherty, who just weeks ago moved into a new efficiency apartment, credits Open Doors with saving his life multiple times.

CAHERTY: You fall asleep in sub-freezing weather, and your chances of waking up. My experiences were that if I had not been in Open Doors, I may not have made a couple winters there. It was tough going. When you meet people face to face who are willing to help you out the way the churches do and Open Doors, it's kind of breathtaking stuff, to see the help right there.

The Open Doors Food Truck Fest will take place rain or shine from noon to 7:00 on Saturday at Sunny Slope Farm.

Plan on coming--the karma will be instant.

For WMRA News, I’m Christopher Clymer Kurtz.

[Everyday People singing “Hold On, I’m Coming”]

Christopher Clymer Kurtz was a freelance journalist for WMRA from 2015 - 2019.