Jason Jalufka, a volunteer for Austin Bicycle Meals, hands out food and water downtown earlier this month. Austin Bicycle Meals received a mini-grant from the city for its efforts to help people experiencing homelessness. Kelly Wourms and Claire Harbutt used to pack 50 lunches on Saturdays in the kitchen of their South Austin home. On Sundays, they’d muster up anyone they could and deliver the lunches by bicycle to people experiencing homelessness.
Their little operation, formed more than two years ago, snowballed. Now Austin Bicycle Meals serves up to 1,000 meals and several other items, including menstrual kits, each month. In the summer, they also hand out popsicles; in the winter, sweaters and socks.
The mission has remained the same: to provide support to people experiencing homelessness, especially those who are tucked into wooded areas and on medians and highways.
Using bikes is essential.
“If you are distributing by car you might have to park illegally and it can just be a bit dangerous," Wourms said. "On bicycles, you’re a little more independent, and I think we can get to some of these places that would otherwise be difficult to reach by car or on foot.”
As the group has grown, so has the need for more space, more bikes and more groceries, Wourms said. A recent grant from the City of Austin will help the organization pay for those needs.
Austin Bicycle Meals and its partner Keep Austin Neighborly were one of 50 projects that received $3,000 through the city’s Food and Climate Equity […]
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