The Good News
July 2020

A Note from Simon


Dear Friends,

I hope this message finds you safe as we all do our best to cope with the challenges and opportunities we are facing. While there are many bright spots we are sharing with you in this edition of our newsletter, there are also modifications to our services that we have had to make.
 
We suspended our in-person early childhood program services last week and will resume in-person when it is safe to do so. We continue to work with parents virtually and have prepared lessons and learning activities that can be done at home. We continue to provide curbside delivery of snack packs, diapers, food, and hygiene products. For our seniors, the curbside distribution of commodities and food, in partnership with St. Timothy's, is going very well.
 
We are now in the virtual portion of Camp Good Sam as in-person Camp ended after four weeks. We have prepared toolkits for at-home use by parents and students and continue with our virtual learning classrooms. Finally, we are beginning to rewrite and modify curriculum for all of our programs for the upcoming school year.
 
Essential operations continue at our main office locations in Brownsville and San Antonio, with proper social distancing and staggered schedules for administrative and program staff. 
 
We are grateful for your support and will continue to do our utmost to serve and protect our clients and staff to the greatest extent possible.
Sincerely,
Camp Good Sam News Updates!
Camp Good Sam (CGS) has gone virtual, and our program staff and youth have been keeping everyone on social media informed on activities with CGS News Updates! You can view all of the updates on our YouTube channel . Check out the "Director's Cut" video below in which our youth were able to execute the scenes and camerawork without any help from staff.
H-E-B and H-E-B Tournament of Champions
Grant Award
Thank you to H-E-B and H-E-B Tournament of Champions for their generous $300,000 grant awarded in June on behalf of our Youth and Teen Services! The award will support all of our youth programs serving San Antonio's West Side community. To learn more about the award, please read the press release here .
Scholarship Signing
Congratulations to our amazing College and Career Services (CCR) scholars who recently signed their scholarship awards! Ashely Aparicio, who received Good Sam's Bishop Jones Ambassador Scholar award, will be attending the University of the Incarnate Word in the fall. Johnny Perez-Hernandez received the Good Samaritan Ambassador Scholarship and will be attending St. Philip's Automotive Program. We are very proud of these two wonderful individuals.
Camp Good Sam Surprise Car Parade!
This July, we held a surprise Car Parade for our Camp Good Sam youth to celebrate our time being together before our campus closure. Though we are still happy we can interact with our youth through Virtual Camp Good Sam, we are grateful we could make this memory with our youth! Thank you to the Texas Cavaliers Charitable Foundation and the SAPD for their partnership in bringing this fun surprise event to our campus. 
Project HOPE Distribution
This month Good Sam partnered with St. Timothy's to help distribute Project HOPE for our eligible seniors out of the St. Timothy's parking lot. Seniors and their families drove up in their cars to pick up commodities and kid's meals. 
School Supply Drive 2020
We have just one week left in our school supply drive! Please click below to see our biggest needs. You can also shop our school supply Amazon Wish List and ship straight to Good Sam. Please contact Rebecca Earle at rebecca.earle@goodsamtx.org with any questions.
Join Our Team!

Good Sam is currently seeking a Chief Development Officer to join our leadership team. Please apply online through our website .
We are so grateful for all of our donors who give to our agency each month. Good Sam relies on the support of compassionate and caring individuals to help provide programs that empower our neighbors.