The Central Market at Preston and Royal is a Preston Hollow icon. Since 2012, it’s been serving the community as a grocery store and servery, with fresh food prepared each day.
Employees there feel a very close connection to the area – and their regular customers.
“The team that works there say that the people that shop there are really family members to them,” HEB Managing Director of Public Affairs Mabrie Jackson said. “They have deep relationships that go back many, many years with the neighbors.”
So, when the October 2019 tornado hit, Jackson and other Central Market team members sprang into action. The store was near closing time at that point, but still had some customers in the store on that fateful Sunday night.
“When it hit, I was watching TV, and I grabbed my husband and I said ‘I’m driving’,” Jackson said. “I didn’t know how we’re going to get in there, because I knew there was a ton of devastation.”
For Jackson, getting to the store and making sure people were safe were her only priorities.
“I was actually driving through people’s front yards in my car to get as close to St Mark’s as I could, because there were trees on the roads and you couldn’t get through,” Jackson said. “And so I got to St Mark’s, got out of the car and I told my husband, ‘Just go drive and somehow get to the store. I don’t care how long it takes you’.”
Despite a treacherous scene of debris, fallen power lines and police sectioning off the store, Jackson was detemined. When she arrived at the store, she saw a mess — the roof had been partially torn off of the store, there was broken glass everywhere from fallen items and the whole store was in a watery disarray.
But, in the days and weeks that followed, the Central Market and HEB team’s focus shifted. Instead of worrying only about their own store’s damage and rebuilding efforts, they decided to open the Central Market kitchen, serving first responders and neighbors in the local community who were also reeling from the disaster.
“When the neighbors were hurting, we were hurting, and it just felt like a real bonding experience for a lot of people,” Jackson said.
Central Market mobilized quickly. The HEB mobile kitchen was open on the morning of Tuesday Oct. 22, just over 24 hours after the initial hit on Sunday night.
“They were able to start breakfast, lunch and dinner for the neighborhood, all the workers and police officers and anybody who was around there that needed to eat,” Jackson said. “We had food for everybody, and we were able to load up a bunch of pickup trucks and stuff with bags of cleaning supplies and some food to take to all of the neighbors nearby.”
However, the effort to distribute both food and supplies couldn’t have been accomplished alone. The owner of Central Market, Stephen Butt, actually reached out to the St. Mark’s Community Service department to ask for help.
Marksmen were there, ready and able to answer that call.
“(Stephen Butt) asked me if we could put together a team of students to help pass food around here,” Director of Community Service and Spanish instructor Jorge Correa said. “They had set up an emergency truck, with a whole full kitchen with stuff in it to cook.”
The HEB workers needed hands and transportation to deliver this food to the community in the surrounding area. So, Correa sent an email.
“I emailed our Community Service Board and faculty,” Correa said. “I copied faculty because I thought that we would need more adults. We were looking for anybody who could help.”
If people were going to organize and help out, it wouldn’t be on campus, meaning that Correa and the board had to improvise.
“We were not allowed to come back on campus because of the damages in the area,” Correa said. “We had to walk all the way over to that corner where we do McDonald’s week (near Central Market). Then, we got instructions and food, and then we started start driving around and helping out.”
Many of the people who were delivered food either couldn’t access their kitchen or couldn’t make their own food, which made the work that the Community Service Board did that week all the more necessary.
“I remember walking to the apartments over there (on Royal) near where the fire station is,” Correa said. “Most of them were elderly. Those people ended up with nothing to cook and no place to find food.”
The selflessness of those involved helped ease the burden on the families and individuals whose homes were damaged in the storm. Students were at the center of that effort.
“We call St. Mark’s for assistance often, and they’ve always been so helpful,” Jackson said. “You’ve just got a great student body who understands that helping others is a cornerstone of growth as you mature. It’s really nice to see a group of students that understand the importance of coming to support the community in terms of need.”
