SAN ANTONIO – New clothes, new shoes and a little extra confidence can make a big difference for a child heading back to school.<\/p>\n
That’s the idea behind Operation School Bell, a program from the Assistance League of San Antonio that helps elementary school students whose families may struggle to afford new clothes and other back-to-school essentials.<\/p>\n
The program serves students from 11 school districts across the San Antonio area, including more than 190 Title I schools.<\/p>\n
Instead of simply receiving a bag of clothes, the children get their own shopping experience.<\/p>\n
The Assistance League has set up its West Avenue location like a store, filled with new clothes, shoes, jackets, hygiene kits and books. With help from volunteers, each child gets to look around and choose what they want.<\/p>\n
Each shopping trip provides about $100 worth of new items.<\/p>\n
Students are recommended for the program by counselors in their school districts.<\/p>\n
Dianne Moe, chair of Operation School Bell, said getting a new outfit can provide something just as important as the clothes themselves: confidence.<\/p>\n
I would think for a child who maybe did not get to school with a new outfit for the year that this has an opportunity for them to maybe show off, you know, show a little bit more of their personality, for them have a little more confidence when they walk in the door to say, you know, I’m here, I am here to learn, but I look good.<\/p>\n
Everything given to the children is new and purchased through donations and proceeds from the Assistance League’s Thrift House at 2611 West Avenue.<\/p>\n
Money raised at the Thrift House helps Operation School Bell continue providing new clothes and other essentials to children throughout the San Antonio area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO – New clothes, new shoes and a little extra confidence can make a big difference for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-422839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}