Nineteen of us gathered at Broadway Park while two members joined the meeting by way of Zoom. Also attending was student guest Erika Lahti. Wally Cole offered our invocation after we recited the Pledge and the Four Way Test. Keith Olson reported that a $100 contribution was received from a long-time peach purchaser who wanted to support our Club’s efforts even though we had to cancel this, our biggest fundraiser, in 2020.
Our program was also the source of our meal for the day. We were served (pork, steak or shrimp) street tacos from the Fish Factor 108, with Leonardo (“Leo”) Segura talking to us about the food truck his father Leonardo, his mother Martha and his sister operate in downtown Fergus Falls. Its normal location is 108 N. Cascade, although they have to temporarily relocate every 21 days due to local ordinances. The family moved from Mexico to Fergus in 2008, with their connection to the community being the owners of Don Pablos -- Leo’s mother has known them since she was just five years old. Leo’s father worked at Bella Cucina’s from the day it opened to the day it closed and then went on to The Fabled Farmer and, after that, worked a while at Otter Tail Power. For the past three years Leo Sr. has wanted to try something different and they ended up investing in a food truck. He likes to have a different special every day, all the while allowing the community to experience Latin seafood. Leo and his father went to Miami to pick up the food truck, figuring it was a way to make the business stand out and also giving them the opportunity to have a traveling restaurant. The Seguras are very family driven and Leo said they live by trust in God, not themselves. The fish tacos (using tilapia, mahi mahi, salmon, walleye or two types of shrimp) they serve are based on what was very common in the area in Mexico they lived, about a two hour drive from the ocean, and Leo also told us about a dish he described as a Mexican potato salad – cerviche -- made with fresh seafood, citrus juices, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes and spices. They were able to keep the food truck open year-round and Leo said that the family has been super-blessed by Fergus Falls. Some thought is being given to getting a bigger food truck and then using the smaller one to travel to different locales. Leo himself is 21 years old and is proud of the Area Learning Center (“ALC”), having graduated from it in 2018. This past July he started working for Young Life, having been involved in the “Walk With Me” mentorship program that is a partnership between Young Life and the ALC, with 45 kids now having an adult mentor. At his own church, Leo has been a children ministry leader for seven years. Leo told us he hates negativity and when something would otherwise bother him, he can usually resolve the feelings by realizing it won’t matter tomorrow.