so back in 2007 I went on my first
mission trip outside the United States
and I got on a plane with 15 people that
I didn’t know and we went to a place in
Brazil called Fortaleza and I spent two
weeks working in an orphanage with
children who had been rescued from some
of the most violent and criminal drug
infested slums in the world and I was so
nervous about going but then when I got
back to the United States I realized
that was one of the most incredible
experiences of my life and I didn’t want
to travel halfway around the world to
feel like that again so I started
volunteering in an organization called
mobile loaves & Fishes
and mobile loaves & Fishes was started
right here in Austin Texas by a man
named Allen Graham and its purpose is to
provide food clothing and dignity to
people who are living on the street and
to under resource people in local
communities Austin has a population of
about 2,100 homeless people that have
been counted and to get counted that
means they’ve had to go into a shelter
or maybe gotten some medical benefits
somewhere or gone to a kitchen but I
believe that Austin’s homeless
population is at least double that
because we have thousands of people that
live on the streets of Austin that have
been that way and in a chronic situation
and they rarely go in and get any kind
of medical treatment they rarely check
into a shelter and they rarely get food
from a kitchen anywhere in the United
States we have over a million children
that are homeless and in Austin ISD we
they have anywhere from three to five
thousand children that don’t have a
place to lay their head every night so
to kind of put that in perspective Lake
Travis high school has 2,800 students
that go to school here so for every
student that is enrolled in Lake Travis
high there’s a student on the streets of
Austin that doesn’t have a home also in
Travis County we have about a hundred
and fifty eight thousand homes that are
considered food insecure and by food
insecure what that means is they may
have a roof over their head or they may
be living in some type of shelter but
just like someone that’s living on the
street they have no idea day to day
where their next meal is coming from
there are a lot of factors that can
contribute to homelessness drug
addiction mental illness alcohol
addiction a significant loss of income
but mobile loaves & Fishes believes that
the greatest cause of homelessness is a
person’s catastrophic loss of family or
community so people living on the street
for whatever reason have run through
their entire network of family and
friends that they can turn to to keep
them from being in that position
Austin has about 15 trucks that go out
every night and the trucks look
generally about the same there’s
clothing on one side and food on the
other there’s about a hundred sandwiches
there’s apples oranges milk juice chips
and where the dignity comes in is people
come up to the truck and we serve them
we ask them choices we say would you
like meat and cheese or would you like
peanut butter and jelly would you like
an apple or would you like an orange
what kind of chips would you like you
see what they need is the sandwich but
what they want is some type of human
interaction someone that will make eye
contact with them that will ask him
about their day and make them feel like
they’re not invisible as of today mobile
owes and fishes has handed out over five
million meals across the United States
but my most favorite thing about MLF is
that there are over 20,000 people that
volunteer in this organization on a
regular basis you see I believe that
people are good and people want to help
other people but I could put a hundred
sandwiches in my car and you could put a
hundred sandwiches in your car and we
may or may not figure out where to go
but once we got there no one would even
know that we had the sandwiches in the
car but the trucks are iconic in their
community and everybody who sees them
that needs them knows what purpose they
serve and they know they can get a meal
from the truck and my other favorite
thing about mobile owes and fishes is
that you can serve in this organization
if you are four or if you are a hundred
and four if you can handsome buddy a
cold glass of lemonade or a hot cup of
coffee on a cold winter’s day
then you can serve in the mobile loaves
& Fishes organization now I believe as a
math teacher that my subject is the most
important as a matter of fact I think my
subjects the only subject that kids need
and it’s the one that when they get out
of high school it’s the one they’re
gonna use the most you might say I’m
biased but that doesn’t make me wrong
but I also believe this if there is
nothing that I can say or do in my
classroom that will empower a student
more than when I take them out and show
them how it feels and how easy it is to
make a difference in someone else’s life
I want to tell you a story about
something that happened when our family
took the truck out a few years ago my
mother-in-law is 81 years old and she is
from a small town in West Texas called
Merkel Merkel has a population of about
2,000 people it’s on i-20 20 miles west
of Abilene and if you’ve ever driven to
Colorado or New Mexico to go skiing or
camping you drove right through it if
you blink you missed it she for a long
time was a justice of the peace in
merkel otherwise known as the town judge
so at any rate a few years ago we
decided that we would all come to Austin
for the holidays and it’s our family’s
tradition that when we do stay in home
stay home for the holidays that we take
the truck out early Christmas morning
and that year was no exception so we all
got up early we met over at Lake Hills
Church we got the we got the truck ready
with everything that’s normally on it
and then we also added breakfast
burritos and hot Starbucks coffee I do
remember that morning was bitterly cold
so we bundled up we headed into town and
we went to one of my favorite places to
serve it’s a place called sunken gardens
and it’s down by Zilker Park and it’s
one of my favorite places to serve
because everybody there is homeless and
has been homeless for quite some time
they’re chronically homeless but also
most of the people we serve are in their
20s and lately I’ve seen a lot of high
schoolers there and honestly I’ve seen a
few middle schoolers lately there any as
well so at any rate we all kind of jump
out we start doing our thing and I
noticed my mother-in-law was a little
nervous I mean coming from a town of
2,000 people she had never done anything
like this before so she was over handing
out the food
and then she was kind of over by the
coffee and then she kind of went around
by the clothes side and then eventually
she’s kind of took a step back and was
watching things from the sidelines here
directly a young man came walking up to
the truck his name is Damon we didn’t
know that then but we kind of know it
now anyways he was talking to my husband
whose name is Chris and they were over
by the coffee and they talked for quite
some time and eventually Damon asked
Chris where are you from and Chris said
well I’m from a small town called
Merkel’s West of abilene bla bla bla and
then we heard Damon say well I’m from
Merkel too but to be honest no one even
really batted an eye because he even
though it was early in the morning Damon
had been hitting a little bit more than
the orange juice and sometimes when
people do that it makes them feel like
they’re from Merkel so we just all kind
of kept on keepin on but then as they
talked my mother-in-law came around the
corner of the truck and Damon made eye
contact with her and he looked her and
he said oh my god you’re the judge now
at that point we all did kind of stop
and stare and you could just feel the
electricity in the air and we knew
something remarkable was about to happen
and sure enough Damon had gotten in a
lot of trouble and Merkel and in her
role as a judge my mother-in-law had
really tried to help him out but things
got too hot for him so he skipped town
he went up to i-20 and he hitched a ride
and whoever he hitched a ride with
dropped him off in Austin at a place
called sunken gardens where he’d been
living on the street homeless for over
two years no one in his family had seen
him heard from him they didn’t know
where he was how he was doing I’m sure
they wondered if he was even still alive
and so as Chris and Damon continued to
talk it came as no surprise to anybody
that Chris had gone to high school with
his parents and it came as even less of
a surprise when Joanne saw that she had
his Mama’s number in her phone and so on
that day on Christmas Day after having
been missing for over two years Damon
called his mama on the phone even now
when I tell his story it’s been a couple
years it’s really hard for me to tell it
without tear
because it was an amazing moment and you
might be asking yourself like oh my gosh
that’s crazy how does this story end
where’s Damon now and I gotta be honest
with you I have no idea I could have
figured out for sure you see my
mother-in-law’s Facebook friends with
him but I would like to suggest you this
that I don’t know that where Damon is
now is even part of the story at all you
see sometimes I think that we think that
we haven’t made a difference in someone
else’s life unless things turn out the
way we think they should turn out if we
haven’t moved a mountain or if we
haven’t slain a dragon then we really
haven’t done anything at all but I’m
here to tell you we’re making it way too
hard you see I know that Joanne made a
difference in Damon’s life she did that
before he even left Merkel but think
about the difference she made in his
mom’s life think about how it must have
felt for her to wake up that Christmas
morning not having seen or heard from
her son in two years you know she had to
have been thinking about him and so she
looks down because her phone rings and
she sees on the caller ID that it’s
Joanne and so she picks it up and she
thinks it’s Joanne gonna wish her a
Merry Christmas and it’s not it’s her
son saying Merry Christmas mom but it
gets even better than that you see
Joanne made a difference in my life you
see now I’m addicted to moments like
that
I want more moments like that in my life
and I don’t want to leave them up to
chance
I think that we can be intentional about
creating them and expecting them in our
lives every day and it only requires
three things that we keep an open mind
that we have a humble heart and that we
have the courage to step outside of our
comfort zone and serve others in a way
that we never had before like my
mother-in-law did thank you for letting
me tell my story with you [Applause]
mission trip outside the United States
and I got on a plane with 15 people that
I didn’t know and we went to a place in
Brazil called Fortaleza and I spent two
weeks working in an orphanage with
children who had been rescued from some
of the most violent and criminal drug
infested slums in the world and I was so
nervous about going but then when I got
back to the United States I realized
that was one of the most incredible
experiences of my life and I didn’t want
to travel halfway around the world to
feel like that again so I started
volunteering in an organization called
mobile loaves & Fishes
and mobile loaves & Fishes was started
right here in Austin Texas by a man
named Allen Graham and its purpose is to
provide food clothing and dignity to
people who are living on the street and
to under resource people in local
communities Austin has a population of
about 2,100 homeless people that have
been counted and to get counted that
means they’ve had to go into a shelter
or maybe gotten some medical benefits
somewhere or gone to a kitchen but I
believe that Austin’s homeless
population is at least double that
because we have thousands of people that
live on the streets of Austin that have
been that way and in a chronic situation
and they rarely go in and get any kind
of medical treatment they rarely check
into a shelter and they rarely get food
from a kitchen anywhere in the United
States we have over a million children
that are homeless and in Austin ISD we
they have anywhere from three to five
thousand children that don’t have a
place to lay their head every night so
to kind of put that in perspective Lake
Travis high school has 2,800 students
that go to school here so for every
student that is enrolled in Lake Travis
high there’s a student on the streets of
Austin that doesn’t have a home also in
Travis County we have about a hundred
and fifty eight thousand homes that are
considered food insecure and by food
insecure what that means is they may
have a roof over their head or they may
be living in some type of shelter but
just like someone that’s living on the
street they have no idea day to day
where their next meal is coming from
there are a lot of factors that can
contribute to homelessness drug
addiction mental illness alcohol
addiction a significant loss of income
but mobile loaves & Fishes believes that
the greatest cause of homelessness is a
person’s catastrophic loss of family or
community so people living on the street
for whatever reason have run through
their entire network of family and
friends that they can turn to to keep
them from being in that position
Austin has about 15 trucks that go out
every night and the trucks look
generally about the same there’s
clothing on one side and food on the
other there’s about a hundred sandwiches
there’s apples oranges milk juice chips
and where the dignity comes in is people
come up to the truck and we serve them
we ask them choices we say would you
like meat and cheese or would you like
peanut butter and jelly would you like
an apple or would you like an orange
what kind of chips would you like you
see what they need is the sandwich but
what they want is some type of human
interaction someone that will make eye
contact with them that will ask him
about their day and make them feel like
they’re not invisible as of today mobile
owes and fishes has handed out over five
million meals across the United States
but my most favorite thing about MLF is
that there are over 20,000 people that
volunteer in this organization on a
regular basis you see I believe that
people are good and people want to help
other people but I could put a hundred
sandwiches in my car and you could put a
hundred sandwiches in your car and we
may or may not figure out where to go
but once we got there no one would even
know that we had the sandwiches in the
car but the trucks are iconic in their
community and everybody who sees them
that needs them knows what purpose they
serve and they know they can get a meal
from the truck and my other favorite
thing about mobile owes and fishes is
that you can serve in this organization
if you are four or if you are a hundred
and four if you can handsome buddy a
cold glass of lemonade or a hot cup of
coffee on a cold winter’s day
then you can serve in the mobile loaves
& Fishes organization now I believe as a
math teacher that my subject is the most
important as a matter of fact I think my
subjects the only subject that kids need
and it’s the one that when they get out
of high school it’s the one they’re
gonna use the most you might say I’m
biased but that doesn’t make me wrong
but I also believe this if there is
nothing that I can say or do in my
classroom that will empower a student
more than when I take them out and show
them how it feels and how easy it is to
make a difference in someone else’s life
I want to tell you a story about
something that happened when our family
took the truck out a few years ago my
mother-in-law is 81 years old and she is
from a small town in West Texas called
Merkel Merkel has a population of about
2,000 people it’s on i-20 20 miles west
of Abilene and if you’ve ever driven to
Colorado or New Mexico to go skiing or
camping you drove right through it if
you blink you missed it she for a long
time was a justice of the peace in
merkel otherwise known as the town judge
so at any rate a few years ago we
decided that we would all come to Austin
for the holidays and it’s our family’s
tradition that when we do stay in home
stay home for the holidays that we take
the truck out early Christmas morning
and that year was no exception so we all
got up early we met over at Lake Hills
Church we got the we got the truck ready
with everything that’s normally on it
and then we also added breakfast
burritos and hot Starbucks coffee I do
remember that morning was bitterly cold
so we bundled up we headed into town and
we went to one of my favorite places to
serve it’s a place called sunken gardens
and it’s down by Zilker Park and it’s
one of my favorite places to serve
because everybody there is homeless and
has been homeless for quite some time
they’re chronically homeless but also
most of the people we serve are in their
20s and lately I’ve seen a lot of high
schoolers there and honestly I’ve seen a
few middle schoolers lately there any as
well so at any rate we all kind of jump
out we start doing our thing and I
noticed my mother-in-law was a little
nervous I mean coming from a town of
2,000 people she had never done anything
like this before so she was over handing
out the food
and then she was kind of over by the
coffee and then she kind of went around
by the clothes side and then eventually
she’s kind of took a step back and was
watching things from the sidelines here
directly a young man came walking up to
the truck his name is Damon we didn’t
know that then but we kind of know it
now anyways he was talking to my husband
whose name is Chris and they were over
by the coffee and they talked for quite
some time and eventually Damon asked
Chris where are you from and Chris said
well I’m from a small town called
Merkel’s West of abilene bla bla bla and
then we heard Damon say well I’m from
Merkel too but to be honest no one even
really batted an eye because he even
though it was early in the morning Damon
had been hitting a little bit more than
the orange juice and sometimes when
people do that it makes them feel like
they’re from Merkel so we just all kind
of kept on keepin on but then as they
talked my mother-in-law came around the
corner of the truck and Damon made eye
contact with her and he looked her and
he said oh my god you’re the judge now
at that point we all did kind of stop
and stare and you could just feel the
electricity in the air and we knew
something remarkable was about to happen
and sure enough Damon had gotten in a
lot of trouble and Merkel and in her
role as a judge my mother-in-law had
really tried to help him out but things
got too hot for him so he skipped town
he went up to i-20 and he hitched a ride
and whoever he hitched a ride with
dropped him off in Austin at a place
called sunken gardens where he’d been
living on the street homeless for over
two years no one in his family had seen
him heard from him they didn’t know
where he was how he was doing I’m sure
they wondered if he was even still alive
and so as Chris and Damon continued to
talk it came as no surprise to anybody
that Chris had gone to high school with
his parents and it came as even less of
a surprise when Joanne saw that she had
his Mama’s number in her phone and so on
that day on Christmas Day after having
been missing for over two years Damon
called his mama on the phone even now
when I tell his story it’s been a couple
years it’s really hard for me to tell it
without tear
because it was an amazing moment and you
might be asking yourself like oh my gosh
that’s crazy how does this story end
where’s Damon now and I gotta be honest
with you I have no idea I could have
figured out for sure you see my
mother-in-law’s Facebook friends with
him but I would like to suggest you this
that I don’t know that where Damon is
now is even part of the story at all you
see sometimes I think that we think that
we haven’t made a difference in someone
else’s life unless things turn out the
way we think they should turn out if we
haven’t moved a mountain or if we
haven’t slain a dragon then we really
haven’t done anything at all but I’m
here to tell you we’re making it way too
hard you see I know that Joanne made a
difference in Damon’s life she did that
before he even left Merkel but think
about the difference she made in his
mom’s life think about how it must have
felt for her to wake up that Christmas
morning not having seen or heard from
her son in two years you know she had to
have been thinking about him and so she
looks down because her phone rings and
she sees on the caller ID that it’s
Joanne and so she picks it up and she
thinks it’s Joanne gonna wish her a
Merry Christmas and it’s not it’s her
son saying Merry Christmas mom but it
gets even better than that you see
Joanne made a difference in my life you
see now I’m addicted to moments like
that
I want more moments like that in my life
and I don’t want to leave them up to
chance
I think that we can be intentional about
creating them and expecting them in our
lives every day and it only requires
three things that we keep an open mind
that we have a humble heart and that we
have the courage to step outside of our
comfort zone and serve others in a way
that we never had before like my
mother-in-law did thank you for letting
me tell my story with you [Applause]
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