At the age of four, Bob & Connie Hoefer’s son, Robert, started playing baseball and quickly found out how much he enjoyed it. Over the years, often with his dad coaching him, he played many positions. His favorites were catching, first base, short stop, second base, and above all pitching. Fast forward to high school days, Robert was frequently asked to step up from junior varsity to varsity games so they could use his pitching abilities. His coach called Robert his “ace pitcher”.
During his Junior year, surgery was required for a torn tendon in his shoulder and that’s where the story begins. It started with OxyContin for pain relief. All the while the doctors were pushing, “don’t let the pain get ahead”, and continuing to dose Robert with pain medication without mentioning possible addiction could come into play. During this time, Robert’s Dada (Bob’s father in law) passed away, and Robert’s desire for relief from the pain of this led to other drugs, ultimately leading Robert to heroin.
Years passed, and Robert found himself with incidents with the law, stints in rehab, and finally real jail time over his head. When he called Bob & Connie, expecting them to come get him, they told Robert that they would not be bailing him out this time. He asked his dad what he should do, and Bob responded “turn to God, son”.
Robert was allowed to leave jail to go to Eagles Nest Regeneration, a ministry for men with addiction which is located in Floyd, VA, knowing if he left or failed a drug test, he would return to jail. While there, he began working in the kitchen, and with it being a food bank, all of the ingredients they had were to be put to use.
It was then that “Island Rehab-anero” hot sauce was created. He was coming home to visit on a weekend pass, and he asked Bob to gather a list of ingredients at the grocery store. Bob happily did so, and father and son made a batch of homemade hot sauce and passed it around for friends and family to taste. It became a hit.
Robert had returned to the ministry in a teaching capacity to men coming into the program, when requests started coming in for the sauce from friends.
Bob & Robert gathered the ingredients and began to make the sauce for distribution. In choosing a name, they considered where it all began. They added the aspect of rehabilitation to it and put a twist on a key ingredient of the sauce, and thus “Island Rehab-anero” Sauce came about.
Today, Bob & Robert grow most of the habaneros, make the sauce, bottle it, label it and distribute it to several businesses in the Deltaville area with 10% of all proceeds going to Eagles Nest Regeneration to further assist their cause.
We are pleased to say Robert hit 3 years sobriety, and married his soulmate, Chrissy on December 11, 2021. They now live in their beautiful home in the mountains, and Robert continues to work for Eagles Nest Ministries as a peer recovery specialist and bidding/quality control consultant for Transformation Painting. Chrissy is a LPN and assists Robert with a family recovery program helping to bring families back together torn apart from this disease.
