Pittsboro church, Mexican food truck celebrate their first 'summer fiesta'

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PITTBORO Cedar Grove United Methodist Church hosted its first 'summer fiesta' with Chapel Hill's Ta Contento last Saturday from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

The Fiesta offered live music, dancing and — of course — food. Mexican food truck Ta Contento catered. Chatham Outreach Alliance (CORA) also provided the church with some shelf-stable food boxes, which the church distributed during the event.

Cedar Grove originally partnered with Ta Contento last August to provide free or discounted monthly meals to the community, especially those laid low financially by the pandemic. Cedar Grove provides the location and funds while Ta Contento — owned by Nora Anaya and her husband Hans — serves up the food.

“We subsidize the meal,” Berrier told the News + Record in January. “So if someone comes in and says they can’t afford a meal, we as the church family will pay for that from some of the gifts that were given to our church.”

Unless there’s bad weather, the church hosts these monthly “Pay What You Can” events every second Thursday of each month between 4 and 7 p.m.  Part of the idea behind the Summer Fiesta was to spread the word about these events, plus other feeding initiatives the church leads with the community’s support.

“We’re continuing on,” Berrier told the News + Record last week. “ … I don’t see us dropping (it) — plus, Nora doesn’t want to drop out. I don’t think we’re going to stop the monthly Pay What You Can event. This (Summer Fiesta) is just a supplemental new effort, and we may decide that we do this a couple times a year.”