Urban Bicycle Food Ministry - Memphis, TN

One of the core tenets of UBFM, established by our founder Tommy Clark, was Consistency. Knowing that once we started serving with regularity, our friends on the streets would be expecting to see us. Tommy strove to ensure that we never missed a ride.

During one of my early rides I had a gentleman gratefully tell me:
“When I woke up this morning and realized it was Wednesday, I knew that I’d get to eat today.”

That Consistency is one of the many reasons I fell in love with UBFM, and I’ve pledged to myself to continue it. During the 11 and a half years we’ve been serving, we’ve never missed a Wednesday night.

And last night was no exception.

Despite the horrible road conditions and sub-freezing temps, our volunteers joined in setting out in vehicles loaded to capacity with blankets and food to seek out and serve those who, for whatever reason, didn’t feel comfortable going to a warming center.

Thank you all for your dedication to UBFM!

And thank you so much to all of you who support UBFM and those we serve with your prayers and donations!

www.ubfmmemphis.org

To celebrate our 11 years of service, we are hosting an anniversary party on Saturday, November 11th at Wally Hatchet’s here in Memphis! Admission is $25 per person, and includes a meal, trivia, and karaoke. There are also many chances to win some awesome door prizes!

All of the proceeds of this event will go directly toward providing meals and essential supplies to our friends on the street. We hope to see you there!

Urban Bicycle Food Ministry - Memphis, TN UBFM is a non-profit that seeks out the homeless of Memphis to deliver meals twice weekly

Toward the end of this morning’s ride, we came upon a man walking alone wearing a backpack. When my daughter Allison asked if he would like a meal he gratefully said “Yes”. After she gave him his food and a bottle of water he thanked her; and as he turned to walk away she heard him quietly say:
“Thank you, God…”

During today’s regular Saturday morning ride to serve a meal to our friends on the streets we found our friend Herman.
A couple weeks ago he mentioned that he had lost his reading glasses. He let me know his preferred lens strength and asked if I would remember him if I ever ran across an extra pair.

Today I was able to give him his new glasses and he was thrilled. He put them on, looked at the packaging they came in, and his face lit up as he read the words and exclaimed: “No more blurry words!”, and he hugged us hard and thanked us profusely over and over.

Such deep and sincere gratefulness for an item so small. I’m humbled to think of how often I must relearn the lesson of true thankfulness.
Herman gave me a much more valuable gift today than I gave him.

If you’d like to volunteer with us, or make a donation toward our mission of providing not just a meal but restoration of dignity and respect to those who are so often forgotten, ignored, or avoided, please visit our website: ubfmmemphis.org

On last night’s regular Wednesday night ride our Main St. Route group came upon a city bus parked at Main and Poplar, with two uniformed drivers standing next to it. As we came to a stop to wait for the light to turn green we were right next to them and one of our riders, Allison Udell, recognized one of them as our friend Kevin. He called her by name and asked if we remembered him.

He then said that he had once been one of our regular recipients of food during our rides when he was homeless and on the streets. He explained that he now had housing and was 4 hours away from completing his 80 hours of training for his new job as a Memphis city bus and trolley driver. He went on to thank us for the times that we treated him with love and dignity when we had served him while he was on the streets. He added that our acceptance of him as he was, and treatment of him as an equal, had given him hope to go on.

This is what keeps us going.
When we ride with UBFM we know that we’re not solving the immense problem of homelessness, but encounters like this remind us that each interaction with our friends on the streets has the potential to restore humanity, dignity, and hope.
I’m so grateful to our kitchen volunteers, our riders, and our donors who are all to thank for making these moments happen!

If you’d like to make a donation please visit our website at ubfmmemphis.org where you’ll find our PayPal link. Every dollar donated provides a full meal for our friends on the streets, which is the vehicle by which we build relationships, and hope!

"Today I went to Dunkin' Donuts and saw a clearly homeless guy sitting on the side of the road and picking up change. Eventually I saw him stroll into Dunkin, as he was counting his change to buy something I began to get super annoying and talked to him over and over again even when he didn't really want to talk. Since he had maybe $1 in change I bought him a coffee and bagel and asked him to sit down with me. He told me a lot about how people are usually very mean to him because he's homeless, how drugs turned him into the person he hated, he lost his mom to cancer, he never knew his dad and he just wants to be someone his mom would be proud of (along with another hours worth of conversation.)
This lovely mans name was Chris and Chris was one of the most honest & sincere people I've ever met. After realizing I really need to get back to class Chris asked me to wait so he can write something down for me. Handing me a crumpled up receipt he apologized for having shaky hand writing, smiled, and left. I opened his note and this was it. 'I wanted to kill myself today, because of u I now do not. Thank u, beautiful person.' "
Credit: Casey Fischer

loading up for another cooooooold ride!

We survived the rain. and we found friends to serve.

Rain will not stop us!

We ride out every Wednesday

Another hot ride, serving all who need us.

10 year anniversary of you UBFM Memphis! Let’s ride!

Rain rain go away, we are still feeding every Wednesday!

Several weeks ago we received a donation of a brand new pair of size 10 steel toed work boots.
I had been carrying them in my bike trailer ever since, on every weekly ride, waiting for the person they were meant for.
Tonight, late in the ride, as we found a person on the street and were preparing a bag of food for him, Out of nowhere I suddenly felt a tug on my heart to ask him if he needed a pair of work boots. My subsequent unexpected silent conversation with God, as we were filling a bag of food for him went like this:

God: Ask him if he needs work boots

Me: He appears to have decent shoes on. Let’s wait until someone specifically asks me for work boots.

God: Ask him if he needs work boots

Me: I don’t even know what shoe size he is. I don’t wanna get his hopes up.

God: Ask him if he needs work boots.

So, I finally acted upon what God was asking me to do, and I asked the man if he needed work boots.

He responded that he had recently found several job opportunities, but they all required applicants to have steel toed shoes or boots.
I asked him what his shoe size was, and he said “10”.

Hearing that, I knew it was meant to be and couldn’t move fast enough to get those boots out of my bike trailer and into his hands.

The lesson I learned tonight was to always listen to, and act upon, that still small voice of God.

Many thanks to Alisha Dumas and her crew for not only joining us on yesterday morning’s ride, but for the very generous monetary donation which will go toward the purchase of ingredients for hundreds of more burritos for our fiends on the streets!

On this morning’s ride we were joined by an awesome group from East Tennessee State University who has selflessly spent their entire spring break week serving with various homeless-focused non-profits here in Memphis.
Their compassion is inspiring, and we’re so grateful for their contribution of love and kindness to the forgotten and marginalized whom we serve!!

So THIS happened today!
49 students from Illinois State University, who chose to spend their spring break in service to others, joined UBFM as the first of their 5 service opportunities in different cities across the country!

This morning they joined us to seek out and deliver meals to well over 200 people in need on the streets of Memphis, prepared hundreds of perfectly packaged hygiene kits, and provided cleaning services at our home base building.

These volunteers immediately latched on to our mission, and helped us fulfill it in a much bigger way than we can on a typical Saturday. I’m deeply grateful for their heartfelt service, and for witnessing the selfless compassion and love that they brought to our friends on the streets. They all impacted lives today.
My heart is full! ❤️

We ride in the rain and the cold. We are out there serving our friends.

60° and week after freezing weather! You never know what you’re gonna wear when delivering burritos on your bike.

This morning’s ride was cold. At ride time it was about 25 degrees. (I grew up in Wisconsin, but after many years in the south my tolerance for cold weather has waned). By ride’s end my hands were aching from the cold and i just couldn’t wait to get home.
Then upon finding one of our friends on the street who we regularly serve, and giving him food and conversing, he said: “I’m so blessed. Isn’t this a beautiful sunny day?!”
This is a man who doesn’t have a warm home to go to, yet he was choosing to focus on something positive. I honestly don’t know if I’d be able to do the same…

I’m so thankful for these lessons that God teaches me each week on our rides!

Thanks Saint Peters Catholic Church on Adams for the donation of gloves jackets and socks!

Thank you Ave Maria Nursing Home and Saiwee family for the sandwiches and bags.

Thank you Anik Dam and his generous family, for making these bags!

This car is making faces at me! End and it got me through my last 2 miles of my 10 mile run!