By Dane Anderson, Staff Writer

Mike Kelly sat in the shade outside the convenience store at Loop 360 and Bee Cave Road Saturday afternoon looking close to collapse. His face was vivid red; he was mumbling to himself. He had on a long sleeved cotton shirt that didn’t fit and his shaggy brown hair stuck out in all directions.

As hot as he was, he was not sweating. Homeless, he had walked over from the nearby greenbelt area earlier in the morning.

Cindy Martin and her young daughter, dressed in red, white and blue for the July Fourth holiday, walked out of the store and over to Kelly. Martin handed him a large, cold bottle of water. 

Kelly smiled at the girl, and she smiled back.

“He looked hot,” Martin said as she and her daughter climbed into their SUV, headed toward a holiday cookout.

“Nice lady,” Kelly said. 

Kelly used to have a plastic water bottle that he filled throughout the day, but he lost it. The new bottle Martin gave him will be a good size to keep, he said. He closed his eyes and smiled. He has a daughter somewhere, but he doesn’t know where she lives now, he said.

“Nice lady,” he repeated.

“Water is the radiator for the body,” said Alan Graham, president and founder for Mobile Loaves & Fishes. “A little bit of water will go a long way in this kind of heat.”

Monday evening, Graham and his wife Tricia met with Westlake volunteers at St. John Neumann’s Catholic Church for a short training session to teach them how they can pick up water bottles from the church and distribute them to the homeless and needy during these hot summer months. 

“People who live in the Westbank area can arrange to come to the church, grab some water bottles and ice for their ice chests and hit the road,” Graham said. “In the course of their everyday business, they can hand out water to those who really need hydration.”

Mobile Loaves & Fishes has been distributing food and supplies to the homeless for 10 years. Graham started the organization through St. John Neumann to provide food, clothing, and dignity to the indigent in Austin. The organization now has 12 catering trucks that go out onto the city streets of Austin, San Antonio, New Orleans, Providence, and Nashville every night of the week with the help of nearly 10,000 volunteers and a single supply truck. 

During the record-setting heat wave of the last two weeks, Graham has cranked up his effort to get water to people on the streets of Austin. He has been making extra water runs each day. Now, he is training people to do that themselves. 

“The impacts of dehydration are tremendous,” he said. “We are trying to keep people from winding up in the emergency room.”

Working at St. John Neumann while the Grahams are training water angels are volunteers from the National Charity League, cutting up watermelon in an additional effort to combat heat and dehydration. The watermelon slices went out on Tuesday’s truck to people on the hot Austin streets, said Denise Carlson.

“When you go on the truck run and you see how grateful people are for something that you make with your own hands, it is very humbling,” said Karla Dzienkowski. 

Graham recently purchased a new $5,500 machine to make the ice that volunteers will need to fill their chests. He is looking for donations to Mobile Loaves & Fishes to help cover the costs. The organization also needs toiletries like shampoo, deodorant, soap, sunscreen, Chapstick and toothbrushes to hand out to the homeless. There are several Mobile Loaves & Fishes commissaries in Austin. The St. John Neumann Catholic Church location alone accommodates 96 teams of volunteers that leave in three trucks from the Westlake area each day. 

To find out how you can pick up supplies from the St. John Neumann commissary to hand out to the homeless or make a donation to Mobile Loaves & Fishes, visit mlfnow.org. 

Graham said that you don’t have to be part of a formal team to save a life. 

“You can pick up a case of water at the store for $4,” he said. “That’s 17 cents a bottle. Go grab a case. Get involved. Roll down your car window. Be Westlake friendly.”