Almost a decade ago, Hamdy Shalabi and his family opened the first location of El Rio Grande Latin Market on Maple Avenue — a short five-minute drive from Children’s Medical Center Dallas.

And since then, patient families — often tired and worried about their children — have stopped by the neighborhood grocery store for food and to use the money services booth.

Hamdy understands their feelings of worry and fear because several years earlier, his son was a patient at the hospital, too.

“We spent five nights at Children’s Health℠, and that was a big piece of the emotional connection for me and my family to the hospital,” said Hamdy, CEO of El Rio Grande Latin Market. “No one wants to be in a hospital, but if you have to be there, Children’s Health is the right place to be.”

Since 2014, Hamdy and his family have been supporters of Children’s Health, donating meals and leading point-of-sale campaigns to give back to the hospital, including the 2021 holiday season.

In 2018, the Shalabi family donated more than $71,000 to support the Family Resource Library at Children’s Medical Center Dallas, which provided Hamdy’s son with books that sparked his imagination and distracted him from treatment during his hospital stay.

And last holiday season, El Rio Grande Latin Market held another point-of-sale campaign to fundraise for Children’s Health.

A neighborhood grocer, Hamdy is proud of the role El Rio Grande Latin Market plays in influencing the lives of women and men, who work in the store as their first job, and the support it provides community organizations like Children’s Health.

“To us, the people who shop in our store aren’t customers — they are neighbors, and we want to support them in every way we can,” he said.