Port Arthur’s Fight to End Hunger: How One Family’s Ministry Became Their Legacy

Along the gulf coast, children in Port Arthur, Texas depend heavily on federal nutrition programs. Pearlanna Carron, a veteran in the area who has faithfully served the wider Jefferson, Orange, and Jasper county area for the majority of her life, serves as the Director of the Triangle Community Outreach, Inc. in Port Arthur, Texas. Named after the Golden Triangle of Texas, which comprises the cities of Orange, Beaumont, and Port Arthur the Triangle Community Outreach, Inc. is a non-profit which partners with local providers of food, clothing, and shelter to meet the needs of the underprivileged, poor, and hungry. As part of their mission, they operate several summer meal sites where Pearlanna champions this work.

When asked about summer meal sites she operated this past summer in Port Arthur, Texas, Pearlanna Carron began by sharing about her mother. In 1981, Pearlanna's mother opened a soup kitchen in Port Arthur - the first of its kind in the area. Before this, her mother would routinely prepare homecooked food and feed those in her community experiencing homelessness.

“The soup kitchen was her heart,” Pearlanna says.

Her mother would spend every holiday serving those in need. So, if Pearlanna and her siblings wanted to spend Christmas or Thanksgiving as a family, they would spend it at the soup kitchen "feeding the hungry and the homeless.”

A few years ago, after Pearlanna's mother passed away, she and her siblings were given surprising gifts: pots and pans large enough to feed a community. The message became clearer and clearer as the years rolled by. What was the message? To continue the work their mother began in 1981.

And so, they did. In 2008, Triangle Community Outreach, Inc. opened their first summer meal site, serving 50 children. From then on, the Triangle Community Outreach, Inc. summer meal program has continued to grow from serving meals at one site to up to 90 sites. In 2024, they operated 78 active summer meal sites and began operating both TDA’s Seamless Summer Option (SSO) and the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP).

When considering those families living in surrounding rural communities, Pearlanna noticed that navigating the handling and distribution of bulk meals to these families for whom driving to a congregate site every day to eat is both necessary and sometimes challenging to achieve. However, through effective planning Triangle Community Outreach, Inc. was able to implement a program overcoming transportation obstacles.

The non-congregate option is invaluable for families living in rural areas because it allows them to pick up an entire week’s worth of food at once.

When asked what inspires her to keep going after so many years of faithfully serving the children of Port Arthur, Pearlanna answered, “To operate summer meals, it has to be a heart matter. There will be times you just don’t feel like doing it. But because of your heart, you get up and do it.”

So much of Pearlanna’s philosophy and drive comes from a desire to honor her mother’s legacy. She recalls her mother using Deuteronomy 15:11 again and again, which reads,

“For the poor shall never cease out of the land. Therefore, I command thee saying, thou shalt open thy hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor and thy needy in the land.”

For Pearlanna, feeding children isn’t a job. For her it is ministry and continuing a legacy.

To all of our Texas hunger heroes, thank you for your continued commitment of care.

About the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty

The Baylor Collaborative believes a world without hunger is possible. To achieve this, we aim to advance food security by becoming a leading contributor to the landscape of hunger research, promoting the adoption of proven and effective interventions, and advocating for evidence-based approaches and policy.