Food for thought: Communitywide program feeds students in need

“How do you concentrate on learning something when you’re so hungry?” Mangrum said.

School Fuel was born out of a desire to ensure students could concentrate on their studies rather than their hunger, Mangrum said. What began as an initiative of the San Marcos First Baptist Church in 2013 has grown into a communitywide program composed entirely of volunteers.

“We wanted it to be the community [volunteering] because this was a community problem, and it had to be the community,” she said.

Last year School Fuel’s 370 volunteers worked 3,000 hours unloading food delivery trucks, packing bags and delivering them to Bowie, De Zavala, Mendez and Travis elementary schools. Each bag includes two cartons of shelf milk, one can of vienna sausage or chicken salad, one can of pasta, one cheese or peanut butter cracker pack, two cereals, mixed fruit, applesauce and one beef stick.

So far the results, while unscientific, have been encouraging, Mangrum said. At the schools in which the program has been put in place, attendance and test scores have gone up.

The group, which recently achieved 501(c)(3) status, is now focusing on expanding its reach.

School Fuel has increased the number of students it serves, from 31 in its first semester in spring 2013 to 485 students in the 2015-16 school year. Although the growth is encouraging, Mangrum said they are still not reaching all the children in the district who are in need. A 2014-15 study found that 2,000 to 2,500 of the district’s 7,500 students would benefit from the program.

Mangrum said the organization currently relies on grants and donations to purchase food for students. It takes $215 to feed a student for the entire school year. The group would like to phase out their reliance on grants and instead rely on donations and volunteer hours.   

“We’d like to be totally sustainable, but it’s a matter of getting the word out there,” Mangrum said. “We need corporations that want to take on a project. That’s really what we want.”

The group is hoping to raise $110,000 this year, which will allow it to feed 520 students for the school year. Superintendent Mark Eads has an even loftier goal for School Fuel.

“I would love to challenge our community to fund 500 more students [than are currently being served] this year,” Eads said.

An additional 500 students would cost about $107,500 in addition to the group’s $110,000 goal.

Eads said the work of School Fuel volunteers deserves praise in SMCISD.

“The people in School Fuel truly are heroes in our community,” he said.