Tamales for heroes.com

Tucson, AZ—Ray and Carlotta Flores of Flores Concepts and the Si Charro! group of locally owned restaurants are proud to announce a new fundraising website called TamaleForHeroes.com with $10,000 pledged for local hospitals!

The family’s website will be a portal to allow those interested in purchasing tamales to be donated to our area hospitals. As the tamales are purchased, they will be collected into baskets and then put together at the Flores’ USDA certified Carlotta’s Kitchen property near downtown Tucson. Carlotta’s Kitchen is one of only a few USDAoperations in Tucson and acts as a hub for many of the Flores Concepts operations here in Tucson and elsewhere.

“We came up with the idea of launching a food support site in conjunction with completion of the final details on our next on-line business, Tamale of The Month.com. This has been in the works for some time and now with all our restaurants in takeout mode, we’ve had more time to work on it” said Flores. Tamale of The Month.com will launch May 1st in time for Cinco de Mayo orders and will also be available to those in all the “tamale challenged” parts of the country. Guests will be able to subscribe to monthly, quarterly or single purchases of delicious SI Charro! tamale selections.

While they’ve been severely impacted by the challenges brought on by the Covid-19 crisis, Flores and his family have remained committed to the principal that “helping others always rewards us in more ways than a bank account ever could “and he may just be on to something as he’s already raised ten thousand dollars to help feed area hospital workers and person in need.

After sending out a pre-launch email to some of his closest friends, Flores was amazed to see the fast response of interest. One of them who oversees the DBM Foundation out of AZ, immediately pledged $10,000 to underwrite tamales for area hospitals, medical heroes and their families who are all part of the effort in battling issues created by the Covid19 crisis. The sponsorship will buy over 4000 tamales or 160 baskets of 25 each to start distributing immediately. This in turn will put more people back to work at Carlotta’s Kitchen to keep up with this effort as well as the joint venture the Flores Concept team recently launched with some of their vendors and the Tucson Metro Chamber to deliver food weekly to southern Arizona fire stations.

Additionally, Flores is working with several other non-profits and support agencies to put food into the hands of those who need it. The Si! Charro group recently assisted the TIHAN Foundation with food delivery to local persons impacted by HIV and the YMCA for those providing much needed childcare solutions to working families.

All of this may seem like a lot to tackle for Flores and his team, but he feels they are some of the most professional, capable people working today and that if anyone can rise to the challenge, they can. As for Flores, his background in healthcare, having owned and sold a successful medical supply business and his personal experience of battling cancer a few years back gives him a unique perspective and understanding of this mission. He has seen first-hand what these busy medical folks deal with and knows how much they will appreciate having something delicious, individually wrapped, easy to heat, with a good balance of carbs, proteins, and fats. Chef Carlotta goes on to add that “tamales can be the perfect meal- time fix for these busy live saving professionals.”

For more information on this effort, please visit www.tamalesforheroes.com or contact Ray Flores at 520-907-1329TM

photo: Ray Flores, Carlotta Flores y Gary Hickey. Photo credit Tucson Foodie