SAN ANTONIO -- Good Samaritan Community Services on San Antonio’s West Side has been a second home for Brenda Turrubiates.

What You Need To Know


  • Good Samaritan Community Center a big part of West Side San Antonio neighborhood

  • Has been closed during the coronavirus pandemic

  • Center's free summer program to take place in June

  • Social distancing measures will be in place 

“So here I actually used to play a lot of kickball with the staff and all of the kids. I remember playing soccer here,” Turrubiates says. 

Turrubiates has a ton of memories at Good Samaritan as a participant and a current staff member. 

“It was mostly just sitting there with my friends and we would just sit there and talk,” Turrubiates said, pointing to the playground.  

Good Samaritan is located in a community where 40 percent of the residents live below the poverty line, which is why the nonprofit offers childcare, youth, family, and senior services. 

“And then watching the staff, the way they cared about me - and it’s the environment that I want to be in,” Turrubiates says. 

Brenda Turrubiates appears at Good Samaritan Community Center in San Antonio, Texas, in this image from May 2020. (Jose Arredondo/Spectrum News)

Turrubiates didn’t want to attend college, but Good Samaritan’s college and readiness program convinced her to take that leap. 

“I just came back to talk to her, and she really put college in my head and I was like, ‘Okay, well let me do it,’” Turrubiates recalled. “And I wasn’t a really good student in high school. I wasn’t bad, but I didn’t have like the best grades.” 

The end result was a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Texas A&M University-San Antonio.

“I’ll pull the chair right here and I sit right in front of them,” Turrubiates said, standing in the room she reads in. “And I let them lay down depending how many kids, and then I read them a book and at the end of the book I’ll ask them questions.”

Good Samaritan’s free summer program is set to take place in June, but it’s going to have some guidelines. No visitors allowed, and all participants must practice social distancing — something that might be a challenge for the kids. 

“The little ones, they love hugging and love being next to you, so I’m still trying to figure out how are they going to feel if I tell them six feet,” Turrubiates says. “It makes me feel sad that I have to tell them that but it’s for a good cause.”