ASAS North Texas staff and families are among those who were greatly affected by the disastrous snow storm the week of February 14th. During the height of the storm, access to power, food, and water was difficult because of Texas’ electrical grid, bursting pipes, and unsafe roads. The emotions of our team during this week could be summed up in one word: frustration. Our office team struggled to connect with our program team, and our program team struggled to communicate with our students and families as we all faced the same crisis.

The whole ASAS North Texas team turned their frustration into a call-to-action. They worked however they could through the week and over the weekend to check-in on our All-Star families. From creating a needs survey for families to ask for help, to fundraising for relief efforts from personal networks, to spending countless hours packaging meal kits for those facing food insecurity, everyone went above and beyond their usual responsibilities to make sure our students and families were being supported.

“I want to reiterate how incredible our team here in North Texas is. We had approximately 45 of our families respond to our needs survey over that weekend, and our entire team jumped into action to individually connect each family with resources or other organizations that could help them. The fact that they are willing to trust us with sensitive information around food insecurity, loss of work, or whatever else, is such a testament to the relationships our Site Coordinators have built with the students and families we serve.”

– Tori Schwarzlose, North Texas Program Director

This amount of love and effort from our team is not a one-off experience, though. The work our team did during the Winter Storm is just an example of how strongly everyone onboard cares about keeping our All-Stars safe and healthy.

One of the positives from this experience was seeing and hearing how much of an impact our team is making. During that week, as long as two team members still had power, ASAS hosted daily Zoom calls that some kids were even joining by candlelight just to connect with our staff.

We also had families who didn’t have immediate issues still respond to our needs survey or messaging our Site Coordinators to thank them for their constant support.

You can help us continue our work by donating today!