Joe Lucido clearly remembers the day he got off the school bus and saw his mother, Joan, sitting on the curb surrounded by the family’s furniture. Sunlight glinted off the tears that were steadily cascading down her face, dropping into a stream of water which was running down the street.
“My father left when I was going into my sophomore year in high school,” said Joe, who was one of six children. “They evicted us. My mom didn’t know what to do. It was a hard time.”
The next scene could have been straight out of a movie. The realtor who sold Joe’s family their first house pulled up and asked his mother what was happening. This woman they barely knew put the family into a house and paid the rent for an entire year.
“The chances that would happen were one in a million,” Joe said. “We could have been in a shelter. Going from nothing to something is really good.”
Now, Joe and his wife, Sara, have come full circle. They want to help others the way that realtor helped the Lucido family years ago. The couple recently established a $50,000 student scholarship endowment with the Collin College Foundation. The gift will memorialize Joe’s mother by naming the new Wylie Campus café “Mama Lucido’s.”
Joe said Joan Lucido began her informal culinary training with her mother, Josephine, who was a home economics teacher. Though Joan was Yugoslavian, she learned to cook Italian dishes from her husband’s family. Due to an accident, which was followed by more than 30 surgeries, she was unable to complete her nursing degree.
“She was disabled, but she was amazing,” Joe said. “She was always happy and kind. When she visited, she just wanted to cook for us.”
According to Joe, his children still request his mother’s macaroni and cheese every Christmas. A consummate cook, Joan was also known for her mostaccioli, lasagna, and rigatoni.
Mama Lucido’s will feature Joan Lucido’s recipes. Located on the first floor of the Student Center, the new café will offer indoor and outdoor seating with a view of the quad. A wide variety of hot and cold, healthy, delectable culinary options will be offered.
Joe paid for his college education, and he and Sara provided funds so their children, Ben and Nicole, could attend college. But Joe and Sara know many children who did not have the opportunity to attend college, and they want to change that.
“We see the difference in the lives of the ones who did go to college,” Sara said. “They had opportunities and are well rounded. They have a better quality of life, and they can follow their dreams. People shouldn’t be held back because of finances.”
Joe couldn’t agree more.
“One of the reasons we did this is that education can impact people’s entire lives,” Joe said. “One person can make a difference. My mother helped me become a better man. All those learning lessons mold you to be who you are, and sometimes the bad stuff ends up being the good stuff.”
For more information about Collin College, visit www.collin.edu.
Reprinted with permission from The Connection Magazine.