After coming dangerously close to shutting its doors earlier this year, the Presa Community Center on the South Side has gotten a second wind under new management. 

Operating since the 1970s, the community center has served the city’s South Central community through programs for older adults, food pantries and youth programs. Originally run out of local church basements, the center eventually found its home at 3721 S. Presa St. in the 1990s. 

At one point, the center had more than 30 employees and offered a robust list of programs, but money ran dry and a brief stint of revolving-door leadership followed. By January, the center had a bare-bones staff of four and several cut services, said longtime employee Regina Aguirre.

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The center’s biggest supporters, United Way and the Alamo Area Council of Governments, had to find someone else to take up the mantle, and despite being hesitant at first, the longstanding and local nonprofit Family Service agreed to take it on. 

Family Service Chief Operating Officer Richard Davidson said the Presa Community Center was previously being funded through private and government “pass-through funding,” or grants.  Now, Family Service is working to keep those funding channels alive while “maximizing” their own contracts to address social determinants of health needs in the Presa center neighborhoods, he added.

As of July 10, the center is officially known as the Family Service Presa Community Center. 

Family Service will offer a new Head Start program out of a portable building behind the Presa Community Center on the South Side. Credit: Xochilt Garcia / San Antonio Report

Aguirre has managed the center’s emergency food pantry for 14 years, and now she’s a coordinator under the new management. Having Family Service take over was a huge blessing, she said.

Recalling the months before the nonprofit took over, Aguirre said the center was “so quiet.” Now, the parking lot is full and the pantry no longer closes for lunch — it’s open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., a change not yet reflected on the center’s website

“It’s a new chapter for Presa.”

Early education expands on South Side

Perhaps the biggest change to the center under Family Service is the opening of a new Head Start program on the South Side. 

The federally funded Head Start program provides free early education and child care services for low-income families. 

Operating out of a portable classroom behind the Presa center’s main building, the center will now offer two Head Start classes with a total of approximately 40 seats. To launch a Head Start program at the Presa Community Center, Family Service moved slots from locations where enrollment was declining. 

Family Service President and CEO Mary Garr said moving those unused spots to the city’s South Central community, where fewer quality early childhood programs are available, made sense. 

An advocacy group that researches child care deserts called Children at Risk found that there are about 46 child care seats available per 100 children of working parents in San Antonio’s District 3, where the Presa center is located. 

The Presa center will be Family Service’s 24th and southernmost Head Start location.

While the portable is undergoing renovations, Family Service is accepting applications for students and Garr expects the new Head Start site to open by the end of August. 

Senior, pantry and youth services continue

Part of the reason Family Service agreed to take on this new project was to ensure services that had been provided by the Presa center for years continued, like programming for older adults and food pantries — resources Family Service hasn’t traditionally offered before. 

Even though Family Service officially took over in July, the nonprofit stepped in earlier to save the center’s summer youth program, a free camp where families could enroll their children while school is out.

While it’s unclear how many clients the center serves, because records were either lost or not kept previously, the center’s most-used resources are probably those offered to older residents in the area. 

Camerino Ramirez, 91, drops by the center almost every day with his wife during senior social hours. He’s been a patron of the senior center since 1991. 

Ramirez and his wife have gotten to know the staff and other patrons of the center pretty well, describing them as a family. Had the Presa center closed, Ramirez said he wouldn’t have gone to a different senior center. 

Camerino Ramirez, 91, visits the Presa Community Center almost every day for senior social hour. A patron of the center for 26 years, he and his wife would not go to a different center if the Presa location closed. Credit: Xochilt Garcia / San Antonio Report

“We’re happy here,” Ramirez, an Air Force veteran, said in Spanish while sitting in a corner of the senior center. He and his wife especially enjoy the social aspect of the center. 

Presa’s senior center also provides free groceries for low-income older adults through city programs like Project HOPE (Healthy Options Program for the Elderly) and the national Commodity Supplemental Food Program.

For Garr, the center’s legacy as a resource for the community’s oldest and youngest members was a selling point when considering whether Family Service should take over. 

“We didn’t want to see those services lost when the need is still here,” she said. 

By securing grant funding, Garr hopes Family Service can bring back resources once offered through the Presa center, such as volunteer income tax services and free transportation for older residents. She also envisions bringing on a financial adviser who could drop by the center a few days a week to offer their services to the community. 

For now, the center’s staff is focused on getting the word out that they’re still serving the community. A longtime employee of the center, Aguirre cried when she first saw the new, colorful marquee marking the center’s entrance.

“We really didn’t know what was going to happen. I’m glad we were able to stay here for the neighborhood and the families that I’ve met over the years, who’ve learned to trust us,” she said. 

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