The line of cars outside the Lost Pines Toyota dealership in Bastrop on Friday morning consistently numbered nearly two dozen vehicles of all makes and models.
Stretched in a line across the dealership’s front parking lot, the cars inched toward the front, where Pastor Roland Nava of the In The Streets Hands Up High Ministry (ITSHUH) and dealership owner Carlos Liriano were waiting along with Salvation Army workers and Lost Pines Toyota employees to give food boxes to residents in need.
Each car and the people in it were greeted with a smile, before the reason for their visit arrived: Bags and boxes full of food donations that were loaded onto backseats and trunks, providing Bastrop area residents who are struggling financially during the coronavirus pandemic with their next meals.
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What the ministry does
In The Streets, Hands Up High Ministry is a soup kitchen, which set up shop just north of downtown Bastrop on Highway 95 in 2013 and has continued to grow.
By 2019, the shelter had partnered with the Capital Area Rural Transportation System (CARTS) to add a stop at the ministry.
The soup kitchen, which is in a larger separate building from the family homeless shelters, serves more than 100 people every day, according to Nava. Due to the pandemic, they ve been delivering the meals to those in need to prevent crowding indoors – it also acts as a drive-thru.