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This week School Fuel received a $20,000 grant from the Cathy and William Davis Charitable Fund, a Donor Advised Fund of the U.S. Charitable Gift Trust. The funds are designated for expanding the current program to provide for an additional 100 middle school children. In the upcoming school year School Fuel will be providing a nutritious sack of weekend food for almost 900 hungry students in kindergarten through sixth grade in the San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District. This grant follows three prior grants from the Davis Fund which has enabled School Fuel to add students each year. Mr. and Mrs. Davis reside in Dallas and have been generous with School Fuel because they appreciate that all donated funds are used to provide food for hungry children and are not used for salaries, travel or any other administrative expenses. Their daughter, Megan and son,Wes said, “No child should have to worry when or where their next meal comes from. The work that School Fuel does to help these kids combat hunger is commendable and we are so thankful for the volunteers that make this possible. We are proud of their work and grateful to be able to be a part of School Fuel with a donation.”
School Fuel is a local program begun in 2013 with 31 children when it was apparent that they came to school having had little or nothing to eat over the weekend. Further investigation revealed many additional students faced the same weekend food insecurity to such a degree they were unable to participate in learning activities on Monday morning so the program is expanding to provide for as many of these children as possible. Studies show hungry children often fall behind at school and drop out long before graduation. School Fuel’s mission is to provide weekend food so that children can achieve their academic potential and stay in school through graduation. The investment per child each year is about $215, a small price to enable a child to succeed and defeat the cycle of poverty.
Packing sacks for distribution will resume September 12 at 6:30 pm. The program is completely volunteer and interested persons can visit the website to sign up to help or to make a donation that will help hungry children eat over the weekend so that they may be successful at school.
