Leading SA: President & CEO of San Antonio Food Bank explains new senior-focused initiative

The food bank is focusing on keeping seniors hunger-free this November

SAN ANTONIO – The San Antonio Food Bank is stepping up and helping out with a new campaign helping our seniors, as over 50,000 are reported to be dealing with food insecurity across the community.

The food bank sets goals to ensure their ability to make a secure community, feeding around 105,000 people, including seniors.

President and CEO of the food bank, Eric Cooper, joined Leading SA this weekend to explain next month’s new senior-focused initiative.

“We’re asking San Antonio to help us allow for a hunger-free November for seniors. It’s basically this: If you give us the financial support, we’ll be able to access the food that would adequately nurse a senior for 30 days. And so it’s just $35 times that 50,000 seniors. If we can demonstrate this, I think we’ll know exactly what it’s going to take so that we can continue it for months to come,” Cooper said.

Cooper shared how work from previous initiatives, such as September’s Hunger Action Month, are not abandoned but act as additives to their goal.

“[It] is our goal to try to do just a little bit more to make sure that we can take care of all the seniors in our community. But it’s been incredible. You all led the call for Hunger Action Month and we saw lots more volunteers. People were doing food drives. You know, it was just an incredible effort to make sure that people are aware of the issue and that they get involved. And so we’re going to continue that challenge through the holidays and just encourage San Antonio to continue to come out and support the San Antonio Foodbank,” Cooper said.

Cooper gave an insight into the food banks’ future plans for the community as recent inflation numbers show why many families struggle.

“The cost of everything has gone up. And so families substitute, and so many families fall short, and they’re leaning on the food bank,” Cooper said.

Planning ahead, the food bank is already working to ensure food is on the table for the most celebrated meal of the year, Thanksgiving.

“We’ve been working hard to procure turkeys, and it was great to see a couple of summery truckloads of frozen turkeys start to already come in from our procurement team. And so we’ve got to raise thousands and thousands of turkeys to make sure that no one goes without. And we’re committed to do that. So we’re going to be doing as much as we can. But San Antonio, you support us in allowing us to do that a great way is run the turkey trot,” Cooper said.

For more information on the San Antonio Food Bank and its Turkey Trot 5K Run/ Walk, click here.


About the Author
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Max Massey is the GMSA weekend anchor and a general assignments reporter. Max has been live at some of the biggest national stories out of Texas in recent years, including the Sutherland Springs shooting, Hurricane Harvey and the manhunt for the Austin bomber. Outside of work, Max follows politics and sports, especially Penn State, his alma mater.

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