Wheels of Sharing Mobile Food Pantry serves Gause, TX

Sherry LeBlanc
Programs Director

I’m pleased to announce that we brought our Wheels of Sharing Mobile Food Pantry to Gause, TX last week.

Gause is 90 miles northeast of Austin, in Milam County, population 400. As Fred (the Mobile Pantry driver), Lauren (Social Work intern who provides food stamp assistance) and I left the Food Bank, I shared with them that I didn’t know how many families would come to this distribution in such a small town and on a rainy day. I also said that I was afraid we wouldn’t have any volunteers with the weather conditions. The people of Gause proved me wrong. We had a fantastic, successful first distribution!

In less than an hour, we provided food for 114 families, with help from 20 volunteers. We’re expecting this site to grow to serve more than 200 families each month.

While talking to clients, I learned that families were coming from all over Milam County, including Hearne and Milano. It was pouring rain throughout the distribution, so unfortunately, I was not able to take photos. Here are some photographs of the town, though, to give you an image of the diverse places that exist throughout our service area.

This is Main St., which we drove through on our way to the Community Center where the distribution was held.

The distribution occurred directly behind this cemetery at the Gause Community Center.

With each new Mobile Food Pantry distribution, we serve more and more of our hungry neighbors who do not have easy access to a food pantry. I invite you to share in this amazing experience. To volunteer at a Mobile Food Pantry distribution, click here. I hope to see you soon!

The Community and the Weather are Warm in San Saba

Known as the Pecan Capital of the World and located on the northern edge of the Edwards Plateau, bisected by the San Saba River and the Colorado River, San Saba County contains 1,122 square miles and a 1980 census of 5,84l people.

Even with its retreat-like image, 16 percent of families and 19.6 percent of the population are below the poverty line. Twenty-nine percent of those living in poverty are under the age of 18 and 12.1 percent of those are 65 years of age or older.

At a recent Wheels of Sharing Mobile Food Pantry distribution in San Saba, Sherry LeBlanc, CAFB Agency Relations Manager, shared her experience:

“I wanted to share a picture from the most recent Mobile Food Pantry distribution. I thought it spoke volumes about the impact of the program. It was taken in San Saba on Wednesday, October 8th.

The women pictured was the sweetest woman. It was her first time to visit the pantry, and she sat with me while I started the sign-in process. Angel [CAFB Driver] grabbed her bags and walked her to her car because she was not completely mobile. (He does this throughout most of our distributions and frequently gets rewarded with homemade carrot cake, bags of pecans and jars of homemade jam).

San Saba is an amazing distribution site. The community really reaches out to one another to help. The help is not only from the volunteers at the distribution, but the clients as well. They give each other rides, help each other carry their food, and really look out for each other. It is not uncommon to have a warm community feeling at the Wheels of Sharing distributions, and the people in San Saba go above and beyond.”