Alan Grahamis the president and founder of Mobile Loaves and Fishes, a social profit enterprise that delivers meals to homeless and working poor people on the streets of Austin and San Antonio, Texas, New Orleans, Louisiana and Nashville, Tennessee, Providence, Rhode Island and soon in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Additionally, Mobile Loaves & Fishes is involved in providing housing to the homeless through its Habitat on Wheels program by purchasing gently used recreational vehicles and placing them in RV parks around town and most recently engaged in first responder disaster relief. Founded in 1998 by Graham and five friends, MLF has served over 1,500,000 meals; more than 430,000 in 2008 alone. With more than 12,000 volunteers, MLF is the largest prepared feeding program to the homeless and working poor in Austin.
Many of MLF's volunteers describe their experiences as life-changing. Perhaps the program has changed no one more than Alan Graham, who was previously a successful real estate investor and developer, founder of Trilogy Development and of the Lynxs Group, which developed Austin’s airport cargo facility.
Alan was born in Houston in 1955. He grew up in Alvin, Texas and attended the College of Mainland and later the University of Texas. In 1978 he left UT to begin a career in real estate. He was a partner in many of Central Texas’ most successful real estate development projects. In the mid 1990s, Alan co-founded the Lynxs Group, which built the air cargo facility at Austin’s new airport in 1997, and went on to build similar facilities at airports around the country.
Alan left the Lynxs Group in 1997 and managed Austin’s cargo port as the new airport was opening. At the same time, Alan had the seed of the idea for Mobile Loaves & Fishes. He and the other founders started by making sack lunches and serving them from the back of a mini-van. Alan readily admits that their original paradigm of serving the homeless had some flaws, but with the help of a formerly homeless man, Houston Flake, they perfected the model that MLF uses successfully today.
Volunteers prepare sandwiches and loads specially customized catering trucks at MLF’s commissary, and then take to the streets providing meals, clothing, toiletries and most importantly, dignity to homeless and working poor people.
Alan and his wife of 24 years, Tricia Graham, have four children of their own and a niece that they raised as well.
