My name is Brian Luck. I am a software engineer living in a suburb of Austin called Round Rock. I have been going downtown Austin since 2003 serving my homeless friends. I started blogging for Mobile Loaves and Fishes back in November of 2007. One day I received an email from the editor of an online magazine called “GivingCity Austin”. She wrote:

Earlier this year, I read a post you wrote on the MLF blog that I still think about today. In it you talked about the people you serve, what they need, and how you were able to provide some of it but not all of it. I think it's stuck with me because it was a detailed and vivid image of what service to homeless people can be. I've had it written on my whiteboard to contact you for months. I wonder if you'd consider writing a short essay for our blog/magazine called GivingCity Austin. We have written about Mobile Loaves & Fishes a lot, and I've kept up with all the activities at MLF via the blog/Twitter/videos/etc. About GivingCity: The blog/magazine our effort to contribute to the philanthropic and charitable community in Central Texas. Please visit us here and download the first issue of our digital magazine. When you download the magazine, please see the column written by Pastor Joe Parker. Our vision is to present an essay like this each issue that we hope will inspire our readers to help/give/volunteer. This is the essay I hope you'll write for our January issue.  Specifically I was hoping you'd write about futility. From what I understand about your work with MLF, you take a truck - supplied with food and supplies you bought yourself - out to areas where homeless men and women live, and you hand it all out, no questions asked. You also seem to have built relationships with some of the people you help. But in the post I read, you described how you ran out of supplies and had to turn people away. You also described how you'd return with more supplies later. It made me think about the need - how it's always going to be there and how maybe there's only so much one person can do to help. Knowing this about the situation, you kept going back. I think some people might wonder why you kept going back. What's the point? they might ask. How can one person make a difference in the homeless problem? So on my whiteboard I've had this written for months:

"Brian/MLF/futility"

Would you consider writing about this for the next issue? Thanks for considering.
Monica Williams
GivingCity Austin
http://givingcityaustin.wordpress.com

I did write the article and it can be downloaded by clicking here. You will also see a link to my Blog on this website in a column named “Blogroll”