DEPARTMENT: Department of Human Services
DEPARTMENT HEAD: Melody Woosley
COUNCIL DISTRICTS IMPACTED: City Wide
SUBJECT:
Update on San Antonio Food Bank and Project Cool Initiatives
SUMMARY:
This item provides a briefing on San Antonio Food Bank and Project Cool initiatives, operated by Catholic Charities and City of San Antonio, Department of Human Services.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
Since Fiscal Year 2005, the City of San Antonio has funded the San Antonio Food Bank for the Project HOPE, Kids Café, and Haven for Hope Community Kitchen Initiatives to ensure the most vulnerable in our community have access to nutritious food and meals. The Project HOPE program provides San Antonio and Bexar County older adults living on a fixed income with supplemental, staple groceries on a monthly basis to help fight hunger and malnutrition. More than 70 partnering sites, including Department of Human Services Senior Centers, provide monthly distribution of 50-60 pounds of food to enrolled seniors each month. Food is chosen to accommodate the special dietary needs of the senior population and includes produce, protein, whole grains and other staples. The Kids Café program provides area children with a nutritious meal and/or snack at participating youth programs throughout the community. These items are coupled with enrichment and physical activities to promote the practice of healthy eating and staying active. The Haven for Hope Community Kitchen provides 3 meals a day, 365 days a year to homeless individuals and families residing on the Haven for Hope Transformational Campus. The program also provides an onsite culinary training program to help Haven for Hope residents learn new workforce skills.
Since 1997, the Department of Human Services, Catholic Charities of San Antonio, Inc., United Way of San Antonio & Bexar County, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and community partners have coordinated Project Cool to provide heat relief to older adults, 60 years of age and older across the city through donation and free distribution of 20-inch box fans. Fan donations can be made at 7 community sites, including 4 Department of Human Services Senior Center locations.
ISSUE:
Given the impact of COVID - 19 in our local community, the San Antonio Food Bank programs provide critical resources to ensure that the most vulnerable in our community have access to nutritious food and meals. Additionally, both the Project HOPE and Project Cool programs ensure older adults, those most likely to be disproportionately impacted by COVID - 19, have access to resources that enable them to limit contact outside their homes while ensuring that are able to be healthy, engaged and independent in their homes.
FISCAL IMPACT:
This item is for briefing purposes only.
RECOMMENDATION:
This item is for briefing purposes only.