Stacks & stacks of groceries

SHS students, staff host San Antonio Food bank drive

(Seguin) — For the past four years, local high school students have been getting hands-on learning experience while helping their community by collecting and donating food to those in need. On March 3, students and teachers came together with the San Antonio Food Bank to host a food drive, which brought lines of cars to the parking lot of Oak Park Mall.

Under clear blue skies, students worked loading vehicles with bags of groceries to be taken home and put to good use.

Seguin High School junior, Sean Allen, is a member of the Construction Trades class and said he and his classmates help with the monthly event.

“Every first Thursday of the month we come out here and help people,” said Allen. “We get the food out to the people in their cars that need the food. We’ve been out here for two hours, I think. We have a system down where we know how many families are in a car, and the amount of supplies we need to (get) for them. We just show up and Ms. Terri tells us what to do and we do it. Every car, they’ll tell us let’s get two of this or one of that, just depending on how many families too. So some cars might have two families so we have to double it. Some might have one, so we just give them a single load. “

The process flowed smoothly, with students working in unison to prep food bags and load them while school personnel with iPads in hand met with those waiting to ensure everyone was registered to get what they needed.

SHS teacher, Terri Hartman is the educator behind the program and is the individual who kept the entire event running smoothly.

“We’ve been doing this for about four years now and its a great way for the students to give back to the community along with the Matador family. We are very fortunate to have members of the Matador family that help us with this as well – the Essential Academics class at the high school, and we have the Construction Trades and they’ve been coming quite a bit. I have students that have walked the stage and they are with the 18 plus, Seguin Works Transition Program and what we do is we prepare these individuals for life beyond high school. From vocational independent living, functional academics and doing things within the community.”

Participating in the food drive helps students with a wide array of essential skills they can take beyond school and utilize in their daily lives. From sorting and picking, food prep and even customer service, they engage in practical skills that can also be used at work.

“Out here they’re transferring skills. We call them transferring and generalizing skills,” Hartman said. “So, by packaging and sorting, discipline, time management, customer service skills, teamwork, I can keep going. I mean, they’re learning all kinds of skills they would do on a vocational site. It prepares them to be part of a team. I also have a job coach; the program itself has 23 students; we started with five when I came; next year, we’ll have about 30. The spinoff of this has been our food pantry. We have a food pantry on the premises now. What has happened is as the cars come through, we have members of our Seguin ISD staff that couldn’t get in the line that might need some assistance – or students – so the pantry was designed to do that.”    

Marlana Ledesma is a student in Hartman’s class and played an essential role in getting food organized for the event.

“Right now, we are putting all the food together,” said Ledesma. “We’re doing milks right now. We have canned food and all that. We do the food pantry too. I help with the stacking. Ms. Terri helps me all the time with stacking.”    

As the lines of cars slowly made their way through the queue, students like Ledesma and Allen enjoyed the opportunity to do something in school that made a difference in their town. And Allen says giving back is the best part of what they do.

“The best part is just seeing that you’re helping out the community here in Seguin, Texas,” said Allen. “We’re showing the future generation of people how to give back to your community.”