For many students, winter break brings rest and celebration, but for others, it brings uncertainty about where their next meal will come from.
Several school-based programs and community partners offer food, hygiene items and emergency support to students experiencing food insecurity. Whether through weekend meal kits or school car closet, these efforts ensure students have access to nutritious meals even when campuses close and support systems pause for the season.
“The purpose of the Care Closet is to meet the needs of students and families who may be struggling with food and basic needs insecurity,” Social Worker Angela Williams said. “We receive anonymous gifts from donors, snacks from Hope Austin, and donations from several local churches that keep our Care Closet stocked.”
The Care Closet provides snacks, self-stable food, hygiene products and even clothing items. Teachers quietly pick up snacks to bring back to the classroom and students who receive weekend meal kids are notified through blind copied emails to maintain students privacy.
“To put it simply,” Williams said. “It’s really hard to focus on learning when you are hungry or when you don’t have clean clothes to wear to school.”
Hope Austin is one of McNeil’s main partners that helps supply weekend meal kits and larger holiday food bags intended to support students during long breaks. Their program serves thousands across Central Texas and delivers directly to campuses.
“We want students to know the opportunity that is food security,” Hope Austin Founder Monica Van Waaden said. “Because when you’re food secure, you can learn and when you’re not food secure, it’s very hard to concentrate and learn while you’re at school. You have to have enough fuel in your body to learn, and that’s the opportunity that you all have so that you can go and live your best dreams.”
Hope Austin also supports our school’s Care Closet, a small on-campus food station stocked with cereals, ramen, peanut butter, protein bars and other items students can grab discreetly during the day. The organization prepares additional meal bags for breaks, including breakfast items, snacks, tortillas, peanut butter, jelly and ingredients for simple meals.
“During the holidays and break, there is a need for food and snacks that increases like this holiday that’s approaching,” Von Waaden said. “Students are going to have to deal with 18 days away from their free and reduced lunch program. And then we ask our teachers to let us know if there’s any students and or families who need assistance. We’re trying to help as much as we can during those 18 days.”
Both Williams and Von Waaden emphasized the importance of dignity. Staff coordinate pickups in private locations and adjust systems when students express discomfort.
“It is essential that students go unknown and it’s not brought to attention, that for whatever reason they need a little help right now with food security, that’s nobody’s business,” Von Waaden said. “And it would make people feel bad if other people knew about it. So we work with our teams to make sure that they’re doing it in a way that is respectful to the students so they don’t feel embarrassed.”
The work has a deep personal impact on providers. One moment that stayed with Von Waaden involved a mother who recognized Hope Austin’s supplies and shared how the program supported her daughter during difficult times.
She talks about a day when Von Waaden was working in the facility. A lady parks her car in their shared parking lot and walked next door to the bagel shop. As she’s walking out she is staring into the facility where Von Waaden was working. Von Waaden motioned for her to come in.
“Before she could speak,” Von Waaden said. “I said, ‘Hello’ And then she told me, she goes, ‘what do you do here?’ Before I could answer her, she told me, ‘I know what you do here. You feed my daughter.’”
Their conversation continued with the lady explaining that her daughter goes to McNeil and how grateful she is to Von Waaden for feeding her daughter every weekend. She goes on to say how she is not able to feed her own daughter, even working a second job.
“At that point,” Von Waaden said. “She’s not speaking to Monica, teacher, Monica the lawyer. She’s speaking to Monica the mother. That’s my best job in the whole world. Don’t get paid for that job, but it’s the best job in the whole world. She was telling me, ‘I can’t feed my daughter.’ None of us as mothers ever think that we are not gonna be able to feed our children. We never imagine that, but that lady’s living it, and we’ve got to see how we help her.”
