UVALDE, Texas – University Health awarded $350,000 to two Uvalde community groups on Friday.
Or, more accurately, it passed the money on to them.
University Health helped treat four of the victims of the May 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School and received more than $550,000 in “unsolicited” donations from 1,851 individuals and organizations looking to help in the wake of the tragedy.
Though the health system says the money from the “Uvalde Victims Relief Fund” it established helped support those families, a lot was left over.
After several months of research into possible recipients, the health system and its fundraising arm presented two checks worth $250,000 and $100,000, respectively, to Family Service and After-School All-Stars on Friday.
“It was maybe November (2022), our CEO, George Hernandez, had asked me to start thinking about what we would do with these funds because we’re not a bank, and they weren’t intended for us in the health system to use,” said Sara Alger, president of University Health Foundation. “They were really for this community. And so we started doing some research and figuring out what does Uvalde really need?”
Family Service provides several programs, including mental health counseling, and has operated in the Uvalde area for 20 years. After the shooting, it saw a growing demand for its services and added more counselors.
President & CEO Mary Garr said the money will ensure they can continue helping the people who need them.
“We will have families that will need long-term support and help, and we want to ensure that we are here to do that,” Garr said.
After-School All-Stars operates after-school programs at three Uvalde elementary schools. Its area director, Susan Trevino, said the money “allows us to get the people we need to bring in to our program after school, and it allows us maybe to take trips into San Antonio and go to museums and do some things that they wouldn’t (ordinarily) do, you know, (if) we didn’t have those funds.”