People line up for miles for free meals and supplies
Church’s nonprofit offers Thanksgiving fare for 1,000 people
Acie Nobles, 45, went out on a blustery, cold and rainy day with his daughter to pick up a Thanksgiving meal in downtown Houston for his family, facing financial struggle.
A trainer at Uptown Fitness in the Galleria area, the former Marine brought his daughter Faith, 8, to St. John’s United Methodist Church, where its nonprofit, Bread for Life, gave free meals and household supplies to the community.
“We’re really strapped, so finding out about this is a blessing for us because it’s such a help,” Nobles said.
Nobles said his clientele has dropped drastically recently because of increasing prices for food and gas.
“Gas and food are killing us; it’s like there’s no break. It’s killing our businesses,” he said.
The nonprofit planned to
begin its meal distribution event at 8 a.m. Saturday. By 7:30 p.m. Friday, there was already a line of cars camped out.
Cars stretched 3 miles down Gray Street by the time the event started.
“It shows the need and how much there is going on in Houston,” said Sarah Simmons, director of health outcomes for Bread of Life.
Bread of Life prepared 1,000 Thanksgiving meals for community members to take either by walk-in or a drive-thru in their cars.
“It changes based on the needs of the community,” Simmons said. “During the pandemic, we saw so many people struggling to meet basic needs, and that’s when these drivethru distributions started.”
The nonprofit realized it was more convenient for its clients to use the drive-thru to receive goods, and it has since kept it for future distributions. But Saturday’s event had a larger turnout than others.
“On average, we’ll probably reach about 7,000 individuals, which can equal about 400 to 700 cars, depending on how many people are in each car,” said Morgan Rasmus, director of innovation at Bread of Life and daughter of Pastor Rudy Rasmus.
The meals were cooked by Lucille’s 1913, the nonprofit part of Lucille’s Restaurant, led by Chef Chris Williams, owner of the restaurant.
Precooked turkeys made the event even more special because the nonprofit usually passed out raw turkeys or coupons.
In the distribution line, cars lined up past the freeway, waiting patiently as they wrapped their way around to the back of the church to receive any goods they needed.
“If we can help them save money on food and household items so they can put it towards rent, then we’re making a difference,” Simmons said.
The nonprofit received a $3.8 million grant from the Quest Diagnostics Foundation as part of a multiyear initiative called the Healthy Houston Collective.
The initiative addresses health care disparities in underserved communities and aims to help Houstonians secure better health care through various programs.
“The Healthy Houston Collective that we’re embarking on through Quest Diagnostics is a long-term vision for helping people become sustainable so that they wouldn’t necessarily have to long-term rely on distributions like this,” Simmons said.
Bread of Life was created by Pastor Rasmus and his wife, Juanita, shortly after they founded St. John’s United Methodist Church in 1992.
“My parents became pastors in 1992, and along with a few people here they founded the Bread of Life as a side ministry, but it became a nonprofit,” Rasmus said. “It started around the same time they became pastors.”
The nonprofit holds meal distributions year-round, twice monthly.
“We’re here consistently, we’re not a pop-up, one time per year or one Thanksgiving handout,” Simmons said. “They know they can come to us and find us seven days per week here with our team.”
Along with food, the nonprofit also gave away supplies such as toilet paper, paper towels, baby products, feminine products, laundry detergent and hygiene products.
“We write how many households are represented in that car, and they get household supplies for each one. Each portion is meant for a family of four,” Rasmus said.
“Nobody plans to be in this line,” Simmons said. “This isn’t anybody’s wish, and they end up here out of need, and we want to make sure that we’re meeting as many of those needs as we can.”