What does immigration law have to do with mangoes? Maybe nothing, but here at Heitz Immigration Law, we decided to participate in this local festival by offering free immigration consultations to the public. We answered a lot of U.S. Immigration questions and enjoyed meeting some old and new friends.
This first-ever festival in our town will hopefully become an annual event that we look forward to being a part of again. My assistants, Betania Nassar and Leni Gutierrez were a lot of help translating Spanish and Portuguese for those who felt more comfortable speaking in their native language.
“The Lake Worth Beach International Mango Festival is a celebration of all things MANGO and the diversity of its community, Lake Worth Beach, through a culinary, creative and musical celebration.”
What more could we ask for? A warm day of sunshine, a tent to shield us from the heat, mango iced tea, mango juice, mango snow-cones, mango muffins, mango cheesecake…. oh yes, we tried it all! As Leni likes to say, “Saturday is no-calorie day,” meaning, anything we eat on Saturday has zero calories! If only that were true. But we sure had fun pretending it was.
A special thanks to Patti Sheldon, local Real Estate Broker, and Vee Buris from iMedia Group, two event organizers who made everything run smoothly and helped us set up our banner and table. These event coordinators were instrumental in bringing this festival to Lake Worth Beach which has previously taken place in Miami and West Palm Beach. If it’s one thing we have a lot of in Lake Worth Beach, it’s mango trees! I have one in my own backyard, although it’s still relatively small and has not yet started to bear fruit. But I’m hoping it will soon.
There were a number of people we talked to, some who just had basic questions about Naturalization and Green Card eligibility, while others had more serious problems such as deportation proceedings in Immigration Court. We were glad to be of service to the community by offering free legal information relating to U.S. Immigration services and benefits. It’s often a very complicated and lengthy path to obtain legal resident status in the United States, plus there is a lot of “mis-information” out there that just is not true.
We look forward to participating in more local events in the near future. Perhaps the next one will involve something even more tastier than mangoes …..chocolate festival perhaps? Whatever it is, we hope to be there!
