Jorge Chunga first started selling food to others over a decade ago to raise funds to help pay for his wife’s medical expenses after her surgery.
The fundraiser later led Chunga to open a food truck and eventually a brick-and-mortar restaurant — Fusion Peru — where the immigrant and his family served their family recipes with the Bryan-College Station community.
Chunga has had to put down his apron and cooking utensils the past few weeks, though, as he’s battled a bacterial infection in his lungs. After a lengthy hospital stay, the local restaurant owner is hoping to head to a rehabilitation facility soon. His family is collecting donations through GoFundMe to help pay for the medical costs.
As of Thursday afternoon, Chunga’s page has received over 250 donations worth almost $28,000 as the page has a goal of raising $50,000.
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“For us, it just goes to show the love my dad has put out there and it’s lovely to see how much love people have given back by sharing the page, donating a few dollars or donating as much as they can,” said Carlo Chunga-Pizarro, Jorge’s son. “I think if my dad were to see how much we’ve fundraised already and the messages people are leaving, I think he would really appreciate it.”
The Chungas are from Piura, Peru, and immigrated to the United States in 2003 before they moved to College Station in 2005. Carlo’s parents worked a number of different jobs to provide for the family. Careers changed when cooking for a living entered the picture, though.
The Chungas’ home served as a little restaurant when Carlo was in middle school. Most of their customers were international students from Texas A&M University. Carlo and his siblings would wait tables as his parents cooked.
In 2015, the Chungas opened a trailer. At first, they took it to different construction sites to sell to workers. Eventually, when Carlo was an A&M student, the trailer landed a spot in Northgate. He would come to the trailer between classes at lunchtime to help and afterward for dinner. From Thursday to Saturday, the trailer stayed open until 2 a.m. to serve bargoers.
In 2017, a man visited the trailer and asked the Chungas if they’d like to open a brick-and-mortar joint in a suite he owned in a shopping center near the intersection of Southwest Parkway and Texas Avenue. Fusion Peru has been there ever since.
“I think it was a way to survive,” Carlo said. “My dad really knew the skills to run a restaurant because he had worked with many different restaurants throughout College Station. He was never really a chef growing up. He told me the way he cooks is the way his mom and grandma taught him how to cook.”
This March, Jorge’s health took an unexpected turn. He first went to the doctor and took antibiotics when he started to have trouble breathing, but the breathing problems persisted and a couple days later his daughter took him to the hospital. He was soon put on a ventilator.
Tests revealed Jorge had infectious bacteria in his lungs, but doctors were unsure how he contracted it. Later, his problems compounded with flu, pneumonia and sepsis. Doctors told Jorge’s wife to tell her children they may have to prepare to say goodbye to their father.
Fortunately, Jorge’s health began to improve. Four weeks into his hospital stay, he had a tracheostomy. On April 18, he was taken off the ventilator and was able to breathe on his own. While Jorge is still weak and has lost weight, Carlo said his family is hoping to get him into a rehab facility soon.
“The doctor did always tell us the recovery was going to be the most hard part because it is going to be a very long recovery,” Carlo said. “Many months, maybe up to a year.”
Right before Jorge’s health problems started, he had taken a step back from being the main chef at all times to doing more managerial work. During his absence, Carlo said the restaurant servers have been gracious enough to pick up extra shifts to help keep things going.
“It was hard at first because my mom had to go back-and-forth from the hospital to the restaurant to picking up groceries and all these other things,” Carlo said, “but luckily they have a community out there that really helped them out with having at least one person be with my dad at all times.”
Over the years, Jorge has tried to give back where he could by donating food to different campus events and has provided food for international students in need. Jorge’s road to recovery is still long, but Carlo expressed his gratitude for the support his family has received in recent weeks.
“It means a lot everyone is showing up the same way my dad has shown up for a lot of people throughout his time in Bryan-College Station,” Carlo said.