Filling the Gap

Texas-based initiative helps San Antonio hospitality workers Get Shift Done

Hospitality workers' skills are being put to use.

When a Texas-based nonprofit saw that San Antonio could benefit from its initiative during the COVID-19 crisis, it jumped right in. Get Shift Done for San Antonio pays out-of-work hospitality employees to provide assistance to in-need charity organizations that have seen a rise in demand since the pandemic began.

Started by Anurag Jain and Patrick Brandt, the nonprofit serves Bexar and surrounding counties by matching displaced hourly workers in the food-service industry with shifts at local food nonprofits. Workers get paid $13 an hour to do what they did pre-pandemic — cook, serve, and deliver food.

The model provides relief in three ways: help for nonprofits, paychecks for the newly unemployed, and food for the hungry.

Get Shift Done recently came to the area thanks to a partnership between United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County. The USAA Foundation funded the initiative, in addition to money it has received from the COVID-19 Community Response Fund.

Get Shift Done implements Shiftsmart technology to find workers for open nonprofit shifts in and around the city. Handling the lion's share of the HR processes, the Shiftsmart platform streamlines operations with onboarding, scheduling, and much more.

“San Antonio is known for its outstanding tourism and award-winning restaurant community that has been hit hard economically as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. We are extremely grateful to partner with United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County to be a part of a solution to provide hunger relief to so many by activating the strong base of restaurant workers who call San Antonio home,” said Shiftsmart president Patrick Brandt.

The list of charitable organizations working with Get Shift Done is quickly growing. Catholic Charities, Archdiocese of San Antonio, Inc.; Haven for Hope; St. Vincent de Paul Society; the San Antonio Food Bank; and Greater Randolph Area Services Program, Inc. (GRASP) are all currently using the matching services.

The initiative is also available in cities across the state and country, including North Texas; Houston; El Paso; Rio Grande Valley; New Orleans; Central Arkansas; and the Washington, D.C. area.

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SPARE ART

North San Antonio gets crafty with new creative supplies shop

Photo by Ismael Rodriguez.

Local nonprofit Spare Parts recently opened its brick-and-mortar center for creative reuse.

One local nonprofit organization has spent years getting environmental accountability and community education down to a fine art. And now it’s getting crafty with a new brick-and-mortar shop in North San Antonio aimed to help locals to go green.

Spare Parts was founded in 2010 by executive director and longtime arts educator Mary Elizabeth Cantú to provide a creative spark for area students and schools lacking arts funding and resources. Through a variety of educational programs, public art exhibitions, events, and the organization’s traveling Mini Art Museum, Spare Parts has enlightened thousands of students and San Antonians, all while fostering reuse practices and sustainability, a key tenet of the nonprofit.

Spare Parts’ latest endeavor is another artistic triumph. Its new center for creative reuse, located at 13451 Wetmore Rd., is nothing less than a crafter’s delight. The shop features an impressive array of “pre-loved” and price-reduced artsy merchandise — from paint supplies and paper crafts to sewing items, beading and jewelry, school and office supplies, vintage gadgets, and crafting kits — all of which has been rescued from area landfills.

Cantú notes that proceeds from the new Spare Parts’ shop will enable the organization to further increase creative and educational experiences for San Antonio students and families. But even more so, she hopes the shop will help locals embrace the concept that one person’s trash can be another’s artistic treasure.

“There really isn’t any more room in the world for this stuff. Buying pre-loved at places like Spare Parts or other stores is a way to reduce the amount of things [people] feel that they need,” Cantú said in a recent interview with the San Antonio Sentinel. “We’re challenging people to rethink things around them, buy pre-loved, and find a way to be creative in their lives.”

In the time of COVID-19, however, getting the creative juices flowing isn’t as simple as popping into the Spare Parts shop. Though the center for creative reuse is open, the store is currently offering only weekend curbside pickup of items ordered through its website. But crafters shouldn’t despair, as Spare Parts is offering private in-person shopping experiences in the new year, with the first planned for January 16 and 17.

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