Why Should Delaware Care?
More than 2,600 Guatemalan residents have come to call Georgetown home, and have created their own unique, local communities. Those bonds can be seen most clearly in times of need, when families are facing tragedy or financial challenges, and their neighbors step in to offer support through food-based fundraisers.
In times of crisis, Georgetown’s Guatemalan community focuses on food not just for comfort, but for meaningful financial support. Online sales and livestreams on social media can help those in need raise money to cover emergency expenses, or even to send loved ones who have passed away back to Guatemala.
Francisco Armando remembers when he first began helping neighbors through the meals he’d grill up for families at the La Casita Outreach Center. Grilled steak and chicken with rice, beans, tortillas and salsa, and sometimes chicken soup.
His efforts have helped many families in need and inspired other neighbors to fundraise for loved ones facing significant challenges by covering medical bills, funeral costs or other financial burdens.
Armando’s food-based humanitarian support system started in 2009, when he was raising funds for after-school snacks for the kids at La Casita, a program run by the First State Community Action Agency. Noticing that the youngsters would often show up to the program hungry, he joined forces with another teacher, and they started selling food to the parents at the program, and were able to provide food for the children.
Word spread from there. Families in the community began to reach out to Armando for help raising the thousands of dollars needed to send loved ones’ remains back to their home countries, so they could be reunited with family.
That nearly 2,000-mile final journey back to Guatemala can range from $5,000 to $12,000. That’s just part of what the family of Santos Maria Chilel Soto, who was fatally shot by a deer hunter in Ellendale earlier this month, needed to collect through an online fundraiser to send her home to rest.
Some of Armando’s fundraising events might start at 1 a.m. on a Saturday and last through the afternoon, with Armando and friends making food and delivering it throughout the greater Georgetown area. Or they might fire up the grill before dawn so they can start selling dishes to construction workers gathering at job sites at 4 a.m.
Armando’s connection to St. Michael the Archangel, a church in downtown Georgetown, has led even more community members to seek his assistance.
“That’s where we come in and stay on top of all of this,” Armando told Spotlight Delaware in a Spanish-language interview. “We visit the family, and we go on Live [on Facebook] and explain what the family needs. Then we say we want to do a food sale and people start helping.”
Far-reaching impacts
When Georgetown resident Irma Gonzalez passed away on Dec. 8, 2025, her family had to find a way to send her remains back to Tacaná, Guatemala. Her immediate family lacked the financial resources on their own, so her aunt, Glaris Gonzalez, thought organizing a food sale could help.
Once the family connected with Armando, out poured the donations of beans, rice, salsa and money.
Thanks to those efforts, the Gonzalez family was able to raise the $14,000 needed to send their loved one to rest in Guatemala, where local family members held her funeral.
Despite snowfall and extreme cold on the day of the food sales to help her niece rest in her home country, the community still showed up. One business owner even brought a food truck to sell tacos for the family.
Glaris Gonzalez said she has no words for how grateful she has been for the community.
“There’s no way to repay it except that I believe each person receives it from God,” she said in Spanish.
She has continued to raise money for other families facing such difficult times, as well.
“We don’t only help send bodies back, but also anyone who needs it,” Glaris Gonzalez said. “We don’t collect a set amount; we wait for whatever comes in. Since everything is donated, we just do the work day by day.”
Nearby Catholic churches have also helped raise money for families and connect them with additional resources. Church community groups often also provide guidance and financial support to families in need, as well.
For Estela Morales, whose husband was sick at the time of their son’s passing, the community was her only hope in laying him properly to rest. She wouldn’t have been able to cover her son’s funeral and burial costs, even within the First State, without their help.
“I have no words; I don’t even know what to say,” Morales said. “They’ve supported us so much, not just Georgetown, but Seaford, families in Florida, from almost everywhere.”
Now, proceeds from another food sale will go to helping support her husband, who is currently on dialysis with mounting medical bills.
How it works
While community members like Armando and local churches facilitate the fundraisers, it’s still up to the families to choose the types of food to sell and where it will take place. Typically the fundraisers are held outside of the family’s home, or in partnership with a supportive business.
Livestreams on Facebook are done before and after the event, so community members can participate virtually in the sale. Donations are accepted through online platforms like Zelle.
The family in need of funds typically covers the cost of the food supplies up front. Armando said a family can spend up to $1,000 on purchasing items such as meat and rice to make other dishes to sell.
That’s where Armando and his team come in. They bring the grill and handle the cooking.
“In the end, the family decides,” Armando said. “If they need our support, we’re there. If not, that’s fine. But going out to look for them, we don’t do that.”
A ripple effect
Armando’s team efforts have inspired other community members to do their own food sale fundraisers.
“I think what we have done has inspired people to do their own thing,” he said.
That includes Kevin Santizo, who has started using social media to promote community-focused food fundraisers to his 65,000-plus followers.
He has been raising donations for Georgetown-area families in need for the last 15 years, but has recently shifted his focus to sharing flyers and going live on Facebook to spread the word about other food fundraisers that the community has planned.
The problem isn’t that the community can’t support more fundraisers. Santizo said there have been efforts that led to too much food being donated. Because of the technical hurdles he faced with licensing, he is considering starting a nonprofit with friends; however, that process comes with its own hurdles regarding paperwork, finances and taxes.
“The thing is,” Santizo said, “the community here in Georgetown comes together. It’s very united for this kind of thing.”