Every week, for nearly 40 years, Wimberley’s Crisis Breadbasket, or CBB, has been distributing food from their location next to Brookshire’s grocery on RR12 to families and households in need. Now through their Student Supplemental Food program, they make sure that Wimberley Independent School District students get the food they need during Summer and Winter school breaks.
Last year, approximately 90 WISD students received food boxes during the 11week Summer break and the two-week Winter break. Each box provides 20 breakfasts and lunches for two students over a period of five days. During the recent two-week Winter break, the program delivered 44 boxes to students the first week and 42 the following week, for a total of 10,780 meals.
CBB’s Board Chair, Stacey Parrish said, “Wimberley Crisis Breadbasket was thrilled to receive a challenge grant from the John C. Anderson Sr. and Marie Jo Anderson Charitable Foundation. The grant will match total eligible funds raised dollar-to-dollar up to $10,000. Due to the generosity of the Wimberley community, we were able to meet the challenge of $10,000 in the month of December. Along with the grant, the money raised will be used to extend the student supplemental food program in 2025.”
Parrish led CBB’s effort to purchase the food for the 13-week program. She partnered with Taylor Christensen, of Cypress Creek Church, who created the resource Feedingwimberley.org, to get the food into student homes.
Christensen, who joined Cypress Creek Church in 2020 as executive pastor, began a food distribution program following the Winter storm of 2021 that eventually led to a partnership of churches, WISD, Hays County Food Bank, Fig Tree, Barnabas Connection, Amigos de Jesus and the City of Wimberley.
“After conversations with our partners, I created Feeding Wimberley to list resources for people who needed assistance,” said Christensen. He and his community partners identified the need to provide food for students during school breaks and coordinated with WISD using the feedingwimberley.org platform to identify and register appropriate student families.
“CBB buys food for the program in bulk and volunteers take the food to a staging area at Barnabas Connection,” Christensen explained.
“There, Cypress Creek Church volunteers define the contents of each box according to the recipients’ requirements. Once the boxes are customized, volunteers from eight local churches deliver the boxes to student homes.”
“The great thing about this program is that it comes about through community collaboration. It’s not about just one church or one organization, it’s about everyone working together for kids and families who need it.
