www.welcomehomergv.com
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Welcome Home WINTER TEXAN • • • January 6, 2021
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We’re just connecting the dots.
VOLUME 6 • ISSUE 12 • January 6, 2021 • • • your official connection to the rio grande valley • • •
hello FROM KRISTI
C
heers! I don’t know about you, but I’ve been waiting for 2021 for a long, long time. I hope, this year, we are able to see some sense of normalcy. I also hope it is sooner rather than later! If 2020 taught me one thing, it’s patience, so I promised myself to keep it! I know it will be a while-maybe a long while--before we are able to mix and mingle like we have in the past; the one thing we can’t do is think the start of a new year means this pandemic is already behind us. But I am hopeful and excited to see what this year brings. I walk... run, rather...into 2021 with a different attitude...one of patience and gratitude and a whole new scale measuring what’s important. The government may not call Welcome Home RGV an essential business, but I know better. I know how important connecting all of you to each other is--especially during a pandemic-and it is my promise to you in 2021 to never stop forging ahead and creating new opportunities for us to be together, even if it has to be virtually for a bit longer! I’m blessed to have you all in my life and look forward to seeing you all soon! • We’re just connecting the dots,
Kristi
THANK YOU TO OUR
2020-2021
SEASON SPONSORS
Vendors display eye-catching lawn and garden decorations.
The palm-tree-lined back entrance to Don-Wes offers parking and easy access to the market.
The Don-Wes Flea Market Treasures within a Valley treasure Story and photos by Eryn Reddell Wingert
The open-air market has a variety of vendors offering an array of items for sale.
The Kettle Corn booth serves nine varieties of the snack.
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ebbie Fitzgerald, who owns Jim met, married, and raised their the Don-Wes Flea Market with her two children in Donna. husband, Jim, chuckles as she clears Debbie worked at a local bank and up some confusion about the name Jim was a contractor when she says of the popular market, “Everybody they decided to buy the Don-Wes, thinks I’m Don and Jim is Wes. But despite not knowing anything about it’s ‘Don’ for Donna, and ‘Wes’ for operating a flea market. “But, what do you do?” Weslaco.” To further “The Don-Wes is really a hidden gem she asks. “You either clarify, she in the heart of the Valley.” drown or continues, • Debbie Fitzgerald • swim. I while the market is located within the city chose to swim.” Debbie says she limits of Donna, Weslaco is just one and Jim have managed to make it work. street away. The Fitzgeralds have owned the What sets the Don-Wes apart from Don-Wes, as it’s commonly known, other South Texas flea markets, for 23 of its 50 years in operation. Debbie says, is their variety of Jim is a Valley native, and Debbie vendors. The Don-Wes not only has moved to South Texas from Boston antiques and collectibles, freshat the age of seven when her family DON-WES FLEA MARKET TREASURES tired of the cold winters. She and CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 >>