Mission Marble Falls making sure no one goes unnoticed

DANIEL CLIFTON • PICAYUNE EDITOR

MARBLE FALLS — Many times, the easiest people to overlook are the ones who need the most help.

When businessman Chris Bean really started looking around Marble Falls, he saw people in desperate situations who he felt compelled to help.

“There are people living here, right in this town, who don’t have anything,” he said. “They go hungry every day because they don’t have anything. We have to help them.”

Bean and several other people, including Grant Dean of Cactus Companies, decided to do something about it. A few weeks ago, they started cooking and serving hot meals three times a week at St. Frederick Baptist Church, 301 Ave. N.

They called the service Mission Marble Falls. The organization’s purpose is fairly simple: Make sure anyone who is hungry gets a meal.

“There’s a real need here I wasn’t even aware of,” Dean said. “It’s like they slip by us as we go to work and go home. We don’t see them, but they’re there and they’re hungry.”

The Rev. George Perry of St. Frederick said most people overlook this segment of the society. It isn’t because we mean to, he explained, but we just aren’t looking for the desperately poor or the struggling.

“I’m going to say there’s a big need for something like this,” Perry said. “I realize a lot of people don’t see the need, but when you go out about town and see people sleeping in cardboard boxes or behind H-E-B diving in dumpsters looking for something to eat, it’s just not right.”

Mission Marble Falls cooks and serves a hot lunch Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the church. While not a mission of the church itself, Perry said the project is welcome to use St. Frederick’s facilities because it is serving people. He pointed out it’s also a way for the church to thank the community, which helped expand St. Frederick’s kitchen facilities for its Mission Outreach.

Dean said with Mission Outreach preparing and serving almost 300 meals every Saturday, it shows how big the need for this type of service is within the community. Ultimately, Dean and Bean would like to see Mission Marble Falls expand to serving lunch five days a week.

“Then, if we could get another church or group to pick up Sunday, we’d have the entire week covered,” Bean said.

Along with the lunch, volunteers pack sack meals to hand out to each of the people who show up.

“It’s something they can take home and have for dinner,” Dean said. “For some of these people, this is all they get to eat.”

Volunteers run the operation. Local businesses and food pantries such as Joseph’s Food Pantry in Granite Shoals provide food and other items.

Though Mission Marble Falls has been up and running for only a few weeks, it’s something Bean has been working on for the past two years. He even organized its nonprofit status two years ago.

“But it wasn’t until now, two years later, that I really had the time to dedicate to it,” he said.

Bean began looking for a place to house the mission project. He was across Avenue N checking one possible building when he saw Perry outside St. Frederick. Bean started a conversation with Perry, sharing his dream of Mission Marble Falls and that he was looking for a place to operate it.

Perry opened up St. Frederick’s kitchen, which was undergoing expansion and renovation, to Bean and Mission Marble Falls.

Bean, Dean and other people helped St. Frederick finish out the kitchen expansion.

“You know, this is a small church, and they don’t have a lot of money, so we helped them out,” Bean said.

The generosity wasn’t lost on Perry.

“Helping Mission Marble Falls is my way of saying ‘thank you’ to the community for helping us out,” Perry said.

While Mission Marble Falls is just starting out, people are hearing about it and the number of folks coming for meals is growing. And it’s not just for those who show up.

“We’ll send meals back with people to folks who can’t make it in,” Dean said. On one recent Wednesday, about 15 people showed up, but the volunteers prepared closer to 30 meals to be taken to others.

And it’s not just about the meal.

“A lot of the people come in here just looking for somebody to talk to,” Dean said.

Mission Marble Falls helps focus resources as well. In the past, many of the people it now serves bounced from church to church looking for a meal or money for a meal, Perry said.

Now, they can come to St. Frederick during Mission Marble Falls hours, which allows the other churches to use funds to help in other ways such as assisting with medical needs, utilities or other things, Perry said.

In the end, programs such as Mission Marble Falls require volunteers to keep them going. Dean said people can go to www.missionmarblefalls.com to learn about volunteer opportunities or sign up for a particular day. People also may email Bean at chris@sounddesign-tx.com for more.

“This is all about people helping people,” Bean said. “It might not sound like much, a meal, but for these people, it makes a big difference.”

daniel@thepicayune.com