Help Eliezer's Family With Funeral Expenses
Donation protected
** NOTE: To be fully transparent, we're repurposing this fundraiser, targeting $10,000 to cover medical and funeral expenses. The former fundraiser, to help Eliezer recover supplies last winter, reached approximately $8,000, which puts the current fundraising target at $18,000. **
https://dcist.com/story/22/05/27/columbia-heights-chef-eliezer-segui-albino-remembered/
Hello friends & neighbors,
https://dcist.com/story/22/05/27/columbia-heights-chef-eliezer-segui-albino-remembered/Hello friends & neighbors,
Earlier this month, Eliezer Albino Segui passed on to meet his eternal reward. His passion for life was infectious, and his smiling face was a fixture of DC's Columbia Heights neighborhood. He was not a stranger to hardship (see his former GoFundMe description below), but he kept a good attitude, and always got back up when the world knocked him down. He was a devout Christian, a community organizer, a father, and a friend to many, and will be sorely missed. Right until the end, he was on the streets of DC, cooking Puerto Rican food, and sharing his culture with others, including donating food to those less fortunate than him.
Beloved Community Incubator and Ward 1 Mutual Aid organizers have been working alongside Eliezer for some time now, to help safeguard the livelihoods of street vendors in the District of Columbia. Now, we're asking you to help us cushion the financial blow of his passing on his surviving relatives. We're in touch with his sister, as well as his former spouse, to help get his affairs in order. Any money leftover will go to his son, Eliezer Alejandro.
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After losing his job at the Convention Center in March, Eliezer Albino began selling Puerto Rican food from catering pans on the street in Columbia Heights. His cooking has attracted praise on PoPville (“great empanadas and roast pork … [g]ive it a chance if you’re passing by!”), as well as The Washington Post (“his customers are regulars and passersby who can’t resist the smell”). With the money he made in the fall & early winter, Eliezer was able to stay afloat, and even ensure his 10-year-old son - who contracted COVID-19 last year - could have something resembling a normal Christmas holiday.
Two weeks ago, Eliezer stepped away from his gear, and when he returned, he found it thrown into a dumpster, bent out of shape, and almost entirely unsalvageable, destroying what was already his ‘plan b.’
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Growing up, Eliezer learned to cook from Christian missionaries, and wound up working on Logos, a Christian outreach vessel, which visited over 108 countries in its 17 years of service, distributing books & aid to more than 6.5 million people. While performing this service work, Logos ran aground in a 1988 storm , off of the Argentinian coast. All 141 aboard, including Eliezer, were safely evacuated.
Logos, soon after being evacuated near Tierra del Fuego (credit: OM Ships)
Over the course of his work on Logos, the poverty Eliezer witnessed & the relationships he forged were formative; he sees life as being about whatever force that’s calling us to support each other, whether that’s something from a specific religious tradition, or just a gut feeling.
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Eliezer moved to DC over 20 years ago, and began working in kitchens. He got his bachelor's degree in Communications from UDC in 2011, spending his spare time outside of work & school feeding those with less. Even today, as profiled in Christmas Eve’s Washington Post , he goes out of his way to ensure that people who don’t have the means to pay for his food can still be fed. From the article:
I watched him pile the to-go boxes high with big slabs of pork and chicken fricassee. I watched him give one senior citizen an equally heavy box without taking any money. “Life is about being fair with everybody,” [Eliezer] said. Even when life wasn’t fair to him.
Eliezer, as photographed in The Washington Post (credit: Petula Dvorak)
Eliezer feels a deep sense of camaraderie & community with the other street vendors in Columbia Heights - everyone supports each other through this incredibly difficult time, whether it’s sharing a couple dollars, giving away some supplies/food, or otherwise.
Eliezer wants to keep doing what he loves -- cooking, and providing for those less fortunate than him. We hope you consider contributing to this GoFundMe to help him get back on his feet.
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What your support can mean:
$200 Canopy
$75 Chafers (serving trays) (need 5x)
$40 Table (need 3x)
$100 Knife set
$79 Cooking set, grill with gas
$30 Storage box with wheels (need 2x)
$250 Transportation cart
$35 Cooler
$29 Tarp
$30 Sternos, cutlery, napkins, silverware station
$XXX Lost wages
If you have any of this equipment, and might be interested in donating it, please be in touch!
Credit: PoPville
After losing his job at the Convention Center in March, Eliezer Albino began selling Puerto Rican food from catering pans on the street in Columbia Heights. His cooking has attracted praise on PoPville (“great empanadas and roast pork … [g]ive it a chance if you’re passing by!”), as well as The Washington Post (“his customers are regulars and passersby who can’t resist the smell”). With the money he made in the fall & early winter, Eliezer was able to stay afloat, and even ensure his 10-year-old son - who contracted COVID-19 last year - could have something resembling a normal Christmas holiday.
Two weeks ago, Eliezer stepped away from his gear, and when he returned, he found it thrown into a dumpster, bent out of shape, and almost entirely unsalvageable, destroying what was already his ‘plan b.’
--
Growing up, Eliezer learned to cook from Christian missionaries, and wound up working on Logos, a Christian outreach vessel, which visited over 108 countries in its 17 years of service, distributing books & aid to more than 6.5 million people. While performing this service work, Logos ran aground in a 1988 storm , off of the Argentinian coast. All 141 aboard, including Eliezer, were safely evacuated.
Logos, soon after being evacuated near Tierra del Fuego (credit: OM Ships)Over the course of his work on Logos, the poverty Eliezer witnessed & the relationships he forged were formative; he sees life as being about whatever force that’s calling us to support each other, whether that’s something from a specific religious tradition, or just a gut feeling.
--
Eliezer moved to DC over 20 years ago, and began working in kitchens. He got his bachelor's degree in Communications from UDC in 2011, spending his spare time outside of work & school feeding those with less. Even today, as profiled in Christmas Eve’s Washington Post , he goes out of his way to ensure that people who don’t have the means to pay for his food can still be fed. From the article:
I watched him pile the to-go boxes high with big slabs of pork and chicken fricassee. I watched him give one senior citizen an equally heavy box without taking any money. “Life is about being fair with everybody,” [Eliezer] said. Even when life wasn’t fair to him.
Eliezer, as photographed in The Washington Post (credit: Petula Dvorak)Eliezer feels a deep sense of camaraderie & community with the other street vendors in Columbia Heights - everyone supports each other through this incredibly difficult time, whether it’s sharing a couple dollars, giving away some supplies/food, or otherwise.
Eliezer wants to keep doing what he loves -- cooking, and providing for those less fortunate than him. We hope you consider contributing to this GoFundMe to help him get back on his feet.
--
What your support can mean:
$200 Canopy
$75 Chafers (serving trays) (need 5x)
$40 Table (need 3x)
$100 Knife set
$79 Cooking set, grill with gas
$30 Storage box with wheels (need 2x)
$250 Transportation cart
$35 Cooler
$29 Tarp
$30 Sternos, cutlery, napkins, silverware station
$XXX Lost wages
If you have any of this equipment, and might be interested in donating it, please be in touch!
Credit: PoPville
Fundraising team (2)
Charles Moran
Organizer
Washington D.C., DC
DC Ward 1 Mutual Aid
Team member