Volunteers deliver hot meals to unhoused people during frigid temperatures in Austin
As Austin temperatures peaked Monday afternoon around 26 degrees, Ari Vinograd loaded up her white truck with insulated boxes of chicken and mashed potatoes and paper bags full of containers of red velvet cake.
The routine is normal for Vinograd, president and founder of the Our Shared Kitchen nonprofit. However, she wanted to make sure that on Monday, when temperatures reached dangerous subfreezing levels, she was able to bring hot meals to her clients, who are people experiencing homelessness.
“We wanted to make sure we support the out-housed community who are the most vulnerable right now,” Vinograd said.
Her team cooked and distributed 300 meals to people living outside.
The nonprofit cooks and delivers meals multiple days a week. Although Monday isn’t normally a delivery day, the group plans to deliver food every day this week in light of the frigid temperatures.
Meteorologists expected low temperatures in Austin to reach 16 degrees overnight Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service. They don’t expect temperatures to rise above freezing until Wednesday.
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City officials on Monday announced they’d extend the hours of cold weather shelters through Wednesday for people who needed to get out of the frigid temperatures.
However, some people without shelter choose to stay outside during the cold.
On her way to distribute meals to people staying near East Cesar Chavez Street, Vinograd stopped several times to give meals to people walking by the side of the road, carrying signs.
"A lot of people really need help in Austin," she said.
The meals are a huge relief normally, but hat's even more true on freezing days, said recipient Robin Nichols.
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“We love her,” Nichols said. “We wouldn’t know what to do without her. She treats us like we’re human beings.”
Nichols, who has been in Austin for about a year, was glad someone came to give them a hot meal.
Glenn Wade, who’d been in Austin for nine years, also was grateful for the meals. With the temperatures so cold, he said he wasn't sure anyone was going to come.
While workers with Our Shared Kitchen focus on serving healthy meals, the nonprofit accepts donations of all kinds of basic necessities, since clients will ask for everything from sanitary products to socks and hand warmers, Vinograd said.
People who want to help those without shelter can donate coats, gloves and other warm clothes to the Austin Winter Collaborative Effort, a coalition of organizations.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin volunteers deliver meals to unhoused people during arctic blast
