SAN ANTONIO \u2014 It was bumper to bumper traffic at San Antonio Independent School District\u2019s Alamo Stadium parking lot, and it wasn\u2019t for a high school playoff game. The traffic was made up of families attending the district’s food distribution.<\/p>\n
Cars lined up at 10 a.m. for a food drive that didn\u2019t start until 2 p.m.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want people to be embarrassed or ashamed because we know times are tough and they\u2019ve been tough,\u201d Jackie Navar said.<\/p>\n
Navar has seen the need as a former principal and now as a family and community engagement specialist for SAISD.<\/p>\n
According to the Texas Education Agency, 87% of families in SAISD are economically disadvantaged.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe need is always there whether it\u2019s for our parents, our students…which is why we do this on a yearly basis,\u201d Navar said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
SAISD and food bank officials say the food drive was much larger this year; over 30,000 pounds of food was distributed to 500 families.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are trying to do everything possible to make sure that we support our families,\u201d SAISD Superintendent Jaime Aquino said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Aquino said families are still reeling from when Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits ran dry this past fall. He said\u00a0SAISD pivoted recently to support those needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why we expanded our supper program; we wanted to make sure that our families, we are taking care of them,\u201d Aquino said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2012, SAISD offered take-home supper to a limited number of campuses with after school programs.<\/p>\n
This past fall, the supper program is now at 64 campuses.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s one less thing parents must worry about, aside from paying the bills, making sure the electricity is on,\u201d Navar said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It’s one of many concerns, she says, families in this historically underprivileged district have.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of our kids need to eat, all of our families need to eat, and they all need dinner so we are trying to make sure they are healthy meals,\u201d Navar said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2014 It was bumper to bumper traffic at San Antonio Independent School District\u2019s Alamo Stadium parking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3564,3565,1570,163,20500,6294,223,82,84,83,6293,27,1569,835],"class_list":["post-93231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-app-community","tag-community-news","tag-ctv","tag-education","tag-food-insecurity-and-hunger","tag-jose-arredondo","tag-news","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-san-antonio-what-you-need-to-know","tag-texas","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93231","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=93231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}