Odessan gets invited to the one of the largest food truck events in Michigan

ODESSA, Texas (KOSA) -Last month, as a part of small business summer, Mary Kate Hamilton introduced Yvette Hernandez who’s the owner of Mi Cocinita food truck.

She overcame drug addiction to start her own small business.

Now, Hernandez has been invited to Michigan to the worlds largest food truck rally.

Hernandez has been working in the food industry for 8 years.

All while battling drug addiction, her brother’s death and her struggles with depression.

She now has the opportunity to showcase her food at one of the biggest food truck events in the world.

Although Hernandez was invited to participate in this rally, one thing standing in her way is funding.

Mi Cocinita is Hernandez’s only form of income.

She says she’s proud to represent Odessa, and that opportunities like this one may not come again.

" These are the moments we waited for we’ve worked at home for 8 years to get to this point. To be at this point and to be able to have an opportunity like this, to be able to participate in the world’s largest food rally,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez says her truck is the only one from Texas, so far, that has been invited to this rally.

She won’t be taking her food truck, but she will take all her equipment she needs to make her food.

Jeremy Gomez, who’s the honor of Generation Entertainment Florida, says he saw Mi Cocinita through a Facebook post.

After researching them more, he decided to invite them to this event.

“When we see other people post we tend to pay a little attention to it. it’s scouting so their food looked really good and it looked authentic, and so we gave them an invite,”

They hold the Guinness world record for the largest parade of food trucks with 125.

Usually this event takes about 6 months to organize, but this time, they had half the time they usually have, so they were only able to invite about 70 food trucks.

Hernandez has about a week to prepare and get the sufficient amount of funds to get to Michigan.

Which she estimates will be around $3,500.

“We are a catering company so we do small caterings throughout the week, but what we’re gonna really try to really do is be out on the evenings at Auto zone on Andrews highway and 31st street. That’s pretty much going to be one of our main locations,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez says the city of Odessa has always been really supportive of local businesses, and says she believes she’ll find a way to get the money to participate in this event.

Mi Cocinita will be at a couple events this weekend, if you want to know where to find them, click here.

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