Brittany Pichler
Managing Editor
Citywide regulations have required businesses to close because of COVID-19, including local Folklores Coffee House on the Southside. However, that hasn’t stopped owners Tatu and Emilie Herrera from giving back to the community.
The couple opened the coffee shop in 2019 after noticing there wasn’t one in their neighborhood, only a Starbucks.
“My wife was kind of like we need one in the community, and we ended up opening it,” Tatu Herrera said. “And sure enough, we became part of the community.”
Since opening, the couple has been dedicated to using their business as a platform to give back, hosting events and garnering donations for charitable causes. In January, they hosted an event for Period Poverty and set up a donation station at their shop asking for sanitary napkins, tampons and period panties.
“We’re trying to do our most,” Herrera said.
After closing their doors due to coronavirus, Herrera and his wife realized the elderly were being affected by the pandemic.
The couple reached out via social media for seniors in need of meals.
“We started off with just doing 30 in one day, to the next day doing 100 to today where we’re doing 160 deliveries,” Tatu Herrera said in a phone interview March 23.
Using the money in their savings account, Herrera and his wife started buying groceries to make meals to deliver to those in need including sandwiches, chips and chicken.
Herrera reached out to friends who are chefs to ensure meals were prepared properly to prevent people from getting sick.
Shortly after, word spread about the Herreras’ good deeds, and people began to donate to assist the couple.
“All the money that is donated goes 100% back into what we’re doing,” Herrera said. “It goes to all the food that we buy, all the containers, all the chips, all the little stuff.”
At first, Herrera was delivering meals by himself. The amount of deliveries sometimes takes up to 10 hours, Herrera said. Since then, volunteers have begun to divide up the meals to deliver to the elderly in a quicker amount of time.
Social distancing is being practiced while making deliveries to prevent spread and for the safety of the elderly. Meals are delivered in front of homes, so there is no contact whatsoever, Herrera said.
Herrera has received heartbreaking stories from seniors. They’re not able to leave their homes or don’t have any family to help them so they haven’t eaten, Herrera said.
“As you’re driving away, you have to cope with those stories you’ve heard, and the next one you go to is another sadder story,” Herrera said. “It’s one after another.”
Herrera recalled a man in hospice who no longer has a caregiver.
“He’s just there and he’s passing away,” Herrera said. “No one to look out for him.”
After the pandemic settles down and the couple is no longer able to continue deliveries, they will be looking into resources to help those in need, Herrera said. A lot of them have applied for Meals on Wheels but they didn’t qualify.
“It’s only one meal that we provide, so I can’t even imagine them going all day without food,” Herrera said. “This is the only food they have.”
As long as the couple has funds and resources to keep delivering meals, they will, Herrera said. The mission of the coffeehouse is to give back to the community.
“If I could help out anybody with anything, that’s our mission as a coffeehouse,” Herrera said.
To volunteer and donate, contact Folklores Coffee House on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Monetary donations are accepted through Cash App at https://cash.app/$tatujoel.
For more information about Folklores Coffee House, visit https://folklorescoffeehouse.com/. The coffee shop is located at 5009 S. Flores St.
