Loretta Smith Wants Royce City ISD Students to Know They Care

Through monthly food distributions and Care Closets, Loretta works to ensure every student has access to nutritious meals.

Running Royce City ISD’s School Pantry program was never part of Loretta Smith’s job description.

But when she learned how many students were arriving for class hungry, Loretta says she knew she had to do something. She was recognized for her work on June 13 at North Texas Food Bank’s Taste! At the Star event.

“It’s been placed on my heart to do this,” says Loretta, who serves as an administrative assistant to multiple departments in the district. “This is what I look forward to.”

Royce City ISD used to have a program that provided students facing hunger with bags of food to take home over the weekend. When they lost that program, she and her peers knew the need still existed. They connected with the North Texas Food Bank and Loretta took charge of implementing a School Pantry program across the district.

“It’s about taking that gap and making it smaller and letting them know we really do care,” she says.

That was less than two years ago, and Loretta has since grown the School Pantry program into an impactful service that reaches children starting at the district’s early childhood center all the way up to its high school.

With the help of student and staff volunteers, Loretta hosts monthly drive-through food distributions that serve students and their families, teachers and the greater community. If someone can’t drive to the distribution, Loretta works with the district’s bus drivers to deliver food to them, or she drops it off herself.

She notes that along with students, they serve hard-working faculty members who are struggling with the same higher cost of living, as well as older adults in the community trying to get by on fixed incomes. They’re now serving around 240 families each month.

In addition to the distributions, Royce City ISD has set up “Care Closets” at its campuses where school counselors can take students and provide them with bags full of food to take home. Loretta says the food is put into backpacks so that students can pick up food without any of their peers ever having to know they needed assistance.

Loretta says she hears almost daily from teachers who are seeing a positive difference in students because of the pantry program. She’s hopeful they’re creating a climate where families know they can ask the district for support whenever they need it. After all, they’re all there with the same goal: helping children succeed.

“It makes a huge difference for the kids,” she says. “I’m just so thankful the North Texas Food Bank has given us the opportunity to serve our community.”