From Her Kitchen to Their Hearts

Every morning before the school day begins in Alonso Yáñez, the Feed the Hungry kitchen comes alive. Steam rises from giant pots. Corn atole warms on the stove. Rice turns the perfect shade of red. The smell of beans, nopales, fresh vegetables, and homemade meals fills the air.   And at the center of it all is Adela Valdez DeAnda.

For almost 10 years, Adela has worked in the school kitchen to help prepare 180 to 200 meals every school day for children in her community. But for Adela, cooking has never been just about food.  It is about love.

“It makes me happy,” she says with a smile. “I love being with the children. I love cooking, learning, and being in the kitchen with other ladies. We feel like family.” That sense of family is something Adela carries into every meal she prepares. 

Many of the children she serves run into the kitchen asking for an extra taco or another spoonful of food. And for her, there is never shame in asking. “If they want more, I tell them, ‘bring your plate, and I’ll serve you.’ They trust us. We’re all equal here.”

Adela learned to cook at home to feed her siblings. She never imagined she would one day help feed hundreds of children. Growing up in a family of twelve, she became her mother’s right hand at only eleven years old. While her mother worked long days harvesting corn to provide food for the family, Adela would return home from school to make tortillas and prepare meals for her siblings.

Her first dish? “Beans, nopales with red chile, potatoes, and tomato,” she remembers proudly. “My mom told me, ‘add potatoes, and it will taste delicious.’”

 That pride still shines through when she talks about cooking today. “My mother gave me that gift,” Adela says. “She taught me how to care for people through food.” Now, years later, that same care reaches hundreds of children. “When I feed the kids, I feel like they are my own children,” she explains. “The love my mother gave me, now I give to other children.”

Adela says one of her greatest joys is knowing children leave school with full stomachs and smiling faces. Some even recognize her around town years later and stop to say thank you. One memory especially stays close to her heart. “My granddaughter tells me, ‘Grandma, don’t leave the school kitchen because your food is so delicious.’” She laughs as she says it, but the emotion behind her words is unmistakable.

For Adela, the kitchen is not simply a place to cook. It is a place where culture, tradition, generosity, and dignity are passed from one generation to the next. She still remembers visiting her grandmother as a child and eating handmade tortillas, atole, quelites, nopales, and molcajete salsa prepared over a fire. “That was healthy food,” she says. “That is what I remember.”

Today, she continues those traditions in the Feed the Hungry kitchen, preparing meals that remind many children of home. And while Adela is humble about her role, the impact of her work is enormous. “Before, many of us suffered more,” she says quietly. “Now these children are receiving something we did not always have.”

When asked what she would say to donors who may never meet the children they are helping, Adela pauses for a moment. “I would tell them thank you,” she says. “Thank you with all my heart. What they do brings joy.”

Then, like any true cook, she begins describing the meals she loves most.

“A very red rice, mole with shredded meat, nopales with tomato and onion,” she says with a grin. “That is how I welcome people into my home.”

For Adela, food is more than nourishment.

It is memory.
It is family.
It is generosity.
It is love served one plate at a time.

And thanks to dedicated cooks like her, thousands of children in our communities experience that love every single school day.

Did You Know? The Alonso Yáñez kitchen helps serve approximately 180–200 meals every school day.