SOCIAL SERVICE
The Hunger Truck: Feeding More Needs Than Just Hunger Houston Muslims reach out to those in need for more than food
PHOTOS © YASMINE ABUSHMEIS
BY RUTH NASRULLAH
T
hey serve people who are otherwise forgotten, people who face an enormity of need, and they do it with goodwill and modest pride. They are the volunteers who run the Hunger Truck, an initiative started by a New York-based nonprofit organization, Muslims Giving Back. This program has expanded to Houston and Dallas, with plans to set up a program in Washington, D.C., soon. So what exactly is a Hunger Truck? It’s a mobile restaurant of sorts, just like a food truck, with a kitchen in the back and big windows in the front through which volunteers hand out food. The Hunger Truck doesn’t sell food, though; it gives it away. “When I heard about the Hunger Truck and started to get involved with it, I was so down for it,” said Yasmine Abushmeis, a volunteer coordinator whose background includes organizing charitable work with 54
Girl Scout and Boy Scout troops through the MultiCultural Center (MCC) in Webster, Texas, just outside of Houston. “What having the truck has really allowed us to do is be consistent with our efforts.” The Hunger Truck’s outreach in the Houston area is one of MCC’s numerous community-based charitable programs that include food distribution to needy residents. While the MCC’s main food distribution program happens on site, the Hunger Truck goes to the areas where there is a need, where people lack the means to travel and pick up food. The organizers alternate between two methods — cooking and catering. Area restaurants provide meals at discounted prices. When the meals are prepared by volunteers, it becomes a real community endeavor. Coordinator Tamer Mansour describes the atmosphere of a catering day. “The
ISLAMIC HORIZONS JULY/AUGUST 2022
whole project has a lot of positivity,” he said. “When we cook as a team, it’s high school students, young professionals, college students, Muslims, non-Muslims, black, white, Asian — everybody just talking, cooking, helping and caring.” Whether it’s cooking or catering, the Hunger Truck generally provides services to three groups: refugee communities, people experiencing homelessness and residents of women’s shelters.
MORE THAN FOOD
Although Houston has been hailed as a success story in reducing homelessness, the challenge hasn’t gone away, especially since the pandemic’s economic impact continues and people living in tents under highway overpasses are still hungry. The Hunger Truck travels to different locations throughout the city to provide meals — but they often provide much more, according to Yasmine Abushmeis. “What we’ve come to learn … basically from the first few times when we started serving, it was more than the food,” she said. “What people really needed was conversation. If you think about it, somebody who’s out on the streets all day — they’re used to being ignored.” Following in the prophetic tradition, charity is also a form of da’wah, as highlighted by a conversation she had with a man at a homeless feeding. “A moment that really touched my heart was when one of the guys that we serve said, ‘You know, I have never felt so valued. Every single person in that assembly line looked me in my eyes and talked to me. I never felt that way.’ And he pointed at my hijab and said, ‘I served against your people overseas, and I never expected this.’”
THE HUNGER TRUCK IN ACTION
I visited a serving day recently at an apartment complex in the WoodlakeBriar Meadow (also known as Mid-West) section of Houston. The area is west of downtown Houston, and the apartments are just off Richmond Avenue, a main street. The Gables complex has all white exteriors and a crowded parking lot; it looks almost urban compared to the neat and tidy homes on the surrounding streets. When I first arrived, I accidentally pulled into an alley behind the building at first and drove past what was clearly a bed set-up for a homeless person.
