School Fuel San Marcos Chosen As Beneficiary Of BIGfest 2019

Staff Reports

School Fuel San Marcos announced it will be the beneficiary for BIGfest 2019 in a newsletter on Wednesday. 

The annual event celebrates Big John Mills birthday and raises money for a local charity. School Fuel San Marcos has been chosen again this year.

One hundred artists have been lined up for the three-day event, which is hosted by Buck’s Backyard.

The event will take place in Buda at 1750 Farm To Market 1626. School Fuel SMTX is looking for donations of gift cards from local restaurants in increments of $25 to $40. The gift cards will be part of the gift card “grab bag,” where people donate $25 to draw a gift card of $25 or more.

School Fuel will have a table at the door all weekend long and is looking for volunteers to help with setup Friday morning and afternoon and throughout the event.

BIGfest 2019’s dates can be found below.

Friday, June 28

6 PM to 1 AM

Saturday, June 29

11 AM to 2 AM

Sunday, June 30

10 PM to 10 PM

Those interest in volunteering can signup here.  A full schedule of the event’s musical lineup can be found here.

School Fuel’s mission is to provide the “fuel” for a better learning environment by removing the pangs of hunger among the students in our classrooms. Over 75% of our school age children are on reduced or free meals at school. Most of them go home on the weekends to little or no food. Statistics show that children who struggle with hunger at home perform at lower levels in school during the week.

In the Spring of 2013, School Fuel began with a pilot program providing food sacks for 31 students; the pilot reflected an overall increase in the performance of those students and a lowering of nurse visits with complaints of head and stomach aches. The teachers and school administrators were instrumental in choosing the participants and collecting evaluations of their performance and progress. The results were overwhelmingly positive.

School Fuel is currently serving 703 students who have a high-risk of little or no food at home. On average the cost is about $215 per student for the whole school year. Each sack consists of 2 meals and 4 snacks for each day of the weekend.

School Fuel is solely operated by and accomplished with volunteers. Using volunteers keeps the operation costs low, which maximizes the number of children we are able to feed.