‘Churgers’ are helping Austin college students combat food insecurity

On any Tuesday evening during the school year, one will find an ever-growing line of students on the sidewalk of San Antonio Street near the University of Texas at Austin.

They’ve come from different commitments — class, work, student organization meetings — but they’re all there for one reason: To eat a damn good burger.

The free burgers are served outside LuMin-Austin, a Lutheran campus ministry located in the heavily student-populated neighborhood of West Campus.

Before COVID-19, LuMin student members would share a meal together every Tuesday. Once the pandemic began and social distancing became a requirement, the church decided to offer a curbside meal option and opened it up to students outside of the ministry.

Slowly, the free burgers grew in popularity. Students have nicknamed them “churgers” (for “church” and “burgers”). Now, about 400 students show up weekly for what is now known as “Tailgate Tuesdays.”

Senior nutrition major Michael Kell found a home at the church starting in his freshman year and is now a LuMin student intern in charge of supplying Tailgate Tuesdays. He said people recognize LuMin because of Tailgate Tuesdays.

“That’s really cool that the main thing we’re known for is feeding people and fostering community,” Kell said. “People are in line for a good amount of time and they’re always just talking with each other, people are meeting each other. I’ve heard stories where people have met their roommates in the line.”

Burgers cook on a grill outside LuMin Church. Lorianne Willett / Texas Standard

Providing 400 students with a free meal weekly is no easy feat — financially or logistically. Donors and alumni support the cost of serving the burgers along with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and LuMin’s building developer.

Prepping ingredients begins hours before the line starts to form at 5 p.m., and volunteers grill burgers and form an assembly line to hand out pickles, cheese and tomatoes. Kell said this semester especially, sometimes those in line to eat lended a hand.

“That’s truly something that like I found just encapsulates kind of what our campus is and the student base we have — that anyone is willing to help out,” Kell said. “The conversations I’ve had with other people, either people I’ve known forever here or people who I just met … have definitely been my favorite part about being a part of this thing.”

A 2022 survey by the Food Insecurity Action Team found about one in three UT students experience food insecurity. A student in the line said she’s been coming to Tailgate Tuesdays once a week all semester.

“I started at the beginning of this spring semester, but I would have started earlier if I knew about them earlier,” she said. “Groceries have been getting more expensive and eating out is even more expensive so it’s extra, especially for students who are not like working or don’t have extra money.” 

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Vivian Zhang is a UT junior who has been volunteering for Tailgate Tuesdays since her freshman year. She said while burgers aren’t the healthiest thing in the world, they fill people up.

Zhang, who has known students experiencing food insecurity, said distance and timing are barriers keeping students from getting food for meals.

“(Students) don’t have a car, the nearest grocery store is either HEB, which you need to have the bus or the car, and Target, which is pretty far from somebody if they’re living on 29th, 28th Street,” Zhang said. “(And) if you’re spending all your time focusing on school … You don’t necessarily have the time to make this huge trip for groceries that is gonna last you what, like three days? Also some people are just working to afford rent. So I have friends who work like 25 hours a week on top of being a full-time student and there’s just no time for anything.”

LuMin’s pastor, Brad Fuerst, says students have told him the burgers were the one hot meal they eat weekly. But despite being church-affiliated, he says there’s no preaching or attempt at conversion at Tailgate Tuesdays.

“We know it as the bait and switch, right? And this happens so all too often when it comes to campus ministries,” Fuerst said. “You’ll have a campus minister (say) ‘Hey, yeah, come we’re gonna have this pizza.’ And you’re like, ‘Yeah, I could go for some pizza.’ And you get in there, and when it turns it’s the bait. And then here’s the switch: ‘Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?’”

Fuerst says he doesn’t think it’s the church’s job to convert people.

“I believe, if someone finds something really compelling about our faith and God is God, then God’s going to get that person. Our only work is to really show how compelling that is by our actions,” Fuerst said.

Fuerst said he thinks right now is probably the hardest time to be a college student since the Vietnam War because the country is at war again and because of the fear created by the immigration crackdown. He also says students are facing all of the normal challenges.

“The thing that I give thanks to God for often is that we get to put a smile on the faces of college students in the midst of all of that, and that makes my heart sing,” Fuerst said. “It’s not only me, but it’s the people both behind the line and it’s the people in the line that gets to feel that joy.

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