A 15-year-old Austin student has turned his church parking lot into a monthly food-collection hub that has funneled $1,000 worth of groceries to people living on the streets in just eight months.
Carsten launched the Community Outreach by IFGF Teens last summer after noticing the city’s growing homeless camps on his daily bus ride. Working mostly alone, he decided donations of canned goods and fresh produce would do more than cash.
At a Glance
- Carsten, 15, runs a monthly food drive out of his church
- About $1,000 in groceries donated since last summer
- Food goes to Mobile Loaves & Fishes for street-side meals
- Church now backs the effort after goals were “surpassed well beyond expectations”
The program runs on a simple cycle: Carsten emails friends, posts on social media, and sets out bins at IFGF Austin each first Saturday. By afternoon the boxes are stacked high with bread, rice, and seasonal fruit. Volunteers from Mobile Loaves & Fishes arrive the same evening to load the haul onto trucks that park under highway overpasses where homeless residents gather.
“He goes into this with a long-term mindset of planting seeds for the next generation,” said William Ruppert, a congregant who nominated Carsten for recognition in a letter to News Of Austin. Ruppert emphasized that the teen’s quiet consistency has nudged adults to pitch in. Church leaders now store bins, print flyers, and cover fuel costs after watching Carsten exceed every monthly goal since November.
No city agency oversees the drive, and Carsten prefers it that way. “You don’t need large systems and organizations or the government to help others,” Ruppert wrote, paraphrasing the teen’s philosophy. Instead, one person with cardboard boxes and a spreadsheet can keep pantry shelves stocked.
The idea grew from a youth-group lesson on local poverty. Carsten asked pastors where donated food ended up; the vague answer prompted him to create a supply chain he could see. He mapped soup kitchens, shelters, and outdoor meal sites, then picked Mobile Loaves & Fishes because they serve after dark when pantry doors close.
Numbers stayed modest at first. Month one collected 112 pounds of rice and beans. By December the tally topped 450 pounds plus 30 dozen eggs donated by a local farmer. A running Google Sheet shows $1,000 in retail value, though Carsten says the bigger win is proving teenagers can steer charity without waiting for adults.
Church attendance has doubled on collection Saturdays. Middle-schoolers now compete to bring the heaviest box, and parents linger for coffee while sorting cans. Youth pastor Esther Lee said the energy shifted after Carsten refused to cancel a drive the weekend he had finals: “Kids realized this wasn’t a one-off project.”
Mobile Loaves & Fishes captain Greg C. said the monthly drop supplies roughly 400 street-side meals. “We can count on those bins the way we count on sunrise,” he told Hannah E. Clearwater. Produce rarely reaches outdoor camps through other channels, making Carsten’s bananas and sweet potatoes a hot commodity.
The teen keeps costs near zero. Grocery stores give away boxes, a local printer donates flyers, and the church’s van is available if fuel is prepaid. Any cash received-birthday gifts from relatives-buys canned protein or transportation. Carsten posts Venmo screenshots for transparency.
Expansion plans stay grounded. He wants a second site at a North Austin church but won’t scale past what he can personally load. “If it gets too big, the food might sit and spoil,” he told Ruppert. Quality control matters; dented cans are tossed, and fresh items travel in coolers.
Austin’s homeless count topped 3,000 in the latest census, a number Carsten keeps on his phone lock screen. He calls it motivation, not discouragement. “I can’t fix the whole number,” he said after a recent drive, “but I can keep my corner of the city fed.”
The effort earned him a school service award, yet teachers still ask why he misses Saturday sports. Carsten shrugs: “Soccer can wait; hunger won’t.”
Key Takeaways
- One determined teen has moved $1,000 of food to Austin’s homeless in under a year
- Local churches are backing youth-led charity after seeing tangible results
- Simple, consistent action sometimes outperforms big-budget programs
- Food, not money, is the currency of trust on the street
Carsten’s next drive is scheduled for the first Saturday of February. He’ll be the lanky kid in a tie-dye apron stacking bananas into banana boxes, convinced small seeds grow sturdy oaks.
