The Hays County Food Bank officially opened its new location in San Marcos at 1612 S I-35 South Frontage Road on Aug. 27.
The Hays County Food Bank (HCFB) is the only food bank entirely located in Hays County and has been operating since 1984. The HCFB distributed over a million pounds of food yearly since 2019, and served over 71,000 households in 2024. It was previously located on Herndon Street in San Marcos, but the operations outgrew those facilities.
“[The new facilities] allow us to accept a lot more donations and to plan out much further in the future, so we can really maximize what we can offer people,” Carter said. “The beauty about the location is because it is so big and we have the two buildings here, as we’re now doing our client choice marketplace.”
The new location is the former Hays Co. Bar-B-Que buildings. Carter said it is five times bigger than their previous location. The front building holds the market and offices and the back building allows for the food bank to store 25 to 30 pallets of goods, while the Herndon Street location could only store 6 to 8 pallets. A pallet is, on average, a 48 in. x 40 in. wooden or plastic platform used to store boxes of goods.
According to Carter, the majority of the food bank’s past services were distributing 20 to 30 lbs of pre-packed food kits or boxes. The HCFB’s client choice marketplace model will allow clients to make an appointment once a month, where they will come and pick out or “shop” for 80 lbs of food based off their needs and preferences.
“We’re trying to provide an entire month’s worth of food, so you can really stock a pantry, and it gives you a lot more options,” Carter said. “Not just for picking what your family will eat, but also being able to plan ahead and shop the grocery sales if you need to supplement or know what you’ll have for next week. So I think for our clients, it’s a lot more dignity and just a lot more efficiency.”
The food bank had its first client choice market appointment on Aug. 19 and has had approximately 100 appointments Monday through Thursday since then, according to Carter. Felicia Nelson is a new San Marcos resident with three kids and a new client for the food bank.
“[Client choice market] is amazing, because we have a couple of particular food needs,” Nelson said. “It helps us not wind up with so many things we can’t use, and we can select the things that will work.”
Nelson said the frontage road location helped her discover the food bank.
“It was super helpful to drive by and just know it was here,” Nelson said. “Our first experience was very friendly, very welcoming.”
HCFB’s reach increased by 25% from 2023-24. Carter believes the recent press coverage and new location is contributing to this.
“We’re still seeing most of our regular clients at the same rate, with some folks that maybe hadn’t heard about us before are finding us now as well,” Carter said.
Carter said the city of San Marcos’s Route 5 Bus has a temporary stop outside the food bank right now, and they’re working with the city to make it a permanent stop.
“The location difference for folks on their feet or on bikes is more challenging, but we really would love people to use the bus system or the CARTS system,” Carter said.
Food insecurity is defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as “limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods,” or a limited way to acquire these socially acceptable foods.
15.9% of Hays County residents experience food insecurity according to Central Texas Food Bank’s Community Needs Assessment. A 15% increase from the food insecurity level in 2023.
“We are on track to have another significant increase this year,” Carter said. “We won’t know until we reach the end, but it is certainly something we’re seeing.”
Carter said support from the community, including individual and church donations, funding San Marcos, Buda, Kyle and Hays County is the largest portion of their funding and keeps them from concerns about statewide or national program or policy changes.
“We’re not worried about shutting the doors anytime soon,” Carter said. “If the support levels were to change, we might have to reconfigure things a little bit, but we are prepared to be here for the foreseeable future.”
