NEISD school donation to SA Food Bank will provide 28,000 meals for families
The San Antonio Food Bank is a place many in the community have turned to in order to help keep their families fed during the coronavirus pandemic.
President and CEO of The SA Food Bank, Eric Cooper, said they typically feed about sixty thousand people per week but the demand has now jumped up to one hundred and twenty thousand per week due to COVID-19.
“The San Antonio Food Bank serves sixteen counties right here in southwest Texas… we’ve seen twice the demand that we normally do,” Cooper explained.
Stone Oak Elementary School Principal Ann Karrer said her campus wanted to get involved and help so they started fundraising.
“Teachers are giving by nature and people who work in a school want to help. I know right now we all feel so limited in the way that we can help and this seemed to be something that we could all do and put a positive impact on people in our community,” Karrer said.
Teachers, staff, community members and parents quickly raised six hundred dollars in the first thirty minutes of the fundraising efforts. Then, in just one week, that number jumped to over thirty-nine hundred dollars.
“We have had teachers who are retired donate; we even had the first principal of our school send in a donation so that was great,” Karrer said.
Donations even came from some of the smallest members of the community.
“I gave fifty dollars for the food bank,” seven-year-old Lilly Velasquez said.
Karrer said the got one last donation on the way to drop off the donation, too.
“We raised $3,905 and we’re on our way to the food bank and right away I got an email from one faculty member that wanted to make it $4,000 and they were so excited,” she said.
“When I think of the dollars raised, four thousand, you can times that by seven and that’s how many meals that we’ll be able to distribute, so twenty-eight thousand meals thanks to our friends at Stone Oak Elementary. That’s going to feed a lot of families and make a big difference,” Cooper said.
Karrer said she is proud to be part of a community that steps up for each other.
“You never know who might need this support. To know that you can be a part of that means a lot to our school, to our community, and to our city,” she said.
Cooper said it means a lot to have schools stepping up and doing what they can for others.
“When kids and schools support us, it’s just an incredible blessing,” he said.
For more information on how to donate, volunteer, or request food assistance, click here: https://safoodbank.org or can call the San Antonio Food Bank at 210-431-8326.
Because #NEISDcares!
