Hurricane relief
Although all eyes are now focused on Hurricane Irma developing off the coast of south Florida, those in Texas who were affected by Harvey are still trying to get used to their new normal. Enter Tracy McGrady.
The ex-NBA player, who now lives in the Houston suburbs, made things just a little better for people living in Houston’s heavily flooded Third Ward and Sunnyside neighborhoods when he and his wife, CleRenda, decided to host a Labor Day barbecue for them.
“We wanted to be able to
give back,” CleRenda McGrady, who works as a life coach at Project P.U.S.H., told the Houston Chronicle.
The McGradys were lucky during the storm. Situated on a hill, their Sugar Land house was spared from flooding. Despite not experiencing the turmoil first hand, they saw enough on television to know they wanted to do something for the recovery effort.
“There are a lot of Hurricane Harvey relief efforts. What was important to us was to serve an area that already needed an extra boost,” CleRenda McGrady said. “That’s why we decided to come to this particular area: to show them some extra love. Labor Day is all about barbecue, so we wanted to bring the barbecue to them.”
“We put it together in less than 24 hours,” Tracy McGrady added of the event that reportedly fed 800 people at Lilly Grove Missionary Baptist Church on Monday. “The biggest thing is to get people away from the devastation to bring some happiness, some joyous times and some laughter. We all need that.”