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This year, as it celebrates its 25th anniversary, El Buen, as it is often called, still relies on volunteers — about 600 of them — along with 67 employees. But as the nonprofit expanded its services to respond to growth in the population it serves, it did so with head-turning growth of its own.
With a roughly $5 million annual budget funded mostly by Episcopalian support, corporations and private foundations, the nonprofit now operates out of three buildings on 11 acres near William Cannon Drive and Manchaca Road in South Austin. El Buen said in 2011 it exceeded its goal to serve more than 12,000 people a year and projected it would double that figure in the next five years.
That's quite a leap from the nonprofit's first week in 1987, when it served hot lunches to three people. About $4,000 in donations from two local churches and the Episcopal Diocese of Texas provided seed money for eventual incorporation as a nonprofit that year.
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