San Antonio’s university "first lady" just picked up a new title: Angel of the Shelter. Peggy Eighmy, the first lady of the University of Texas at San Antonio, has been named The Children’s Shelter’s 2026 Angel of the Shelter after nearly a decade of helping build a countywide pipeline that gets young people with foster care histories to college and keeps them there. Her efforts helped launch the Bexar County Fostering Educational Success pilot project, a public-university collaboration focused on college awareness, enrollment and retention for foster youth.
Eighmy accepted the honor at The Children’s Shelter’s Give a Piece of Your Heart luncheon on Thursday, May 7, 2026, as announced by The Children’s Shelter. The award recognizes how she pulled together universities, courts and nonprofits to tackle the day-to-day barriers that often keep former foster youth from enrolling in college or finishing a degree.
From pilot to partnership
The initiative Eighmy championed is the Bexar County Fostering Educational Success pilot, a UTSA-led collaboration with Texas A&M University–San Antonio, the Alamo Colleges District, Bexar County Children’s Court and Child Advocates San Antonio that builds campus-based and pre-college supports. The model pairs trauma-informed coaching, peer mentoring, legal support and dedicated campus staff to guide students from middle school through college. As outlined by Bexar County Fostering Educational Success, UTSA serves as the program’s fiduciary and administrator.
How the state paid for it
The pilot got off the ground after the Texas Legislature approved a $3.5 million appropriation in 2019 to launch the countywide effort and fund campus centers and staff. That seed money, pushed by members of the Bexar County delegation, gave partners the resources to build the infrastructure needed to reach foster youth before and during college, according to the Texas Comptroller’s FiscalNotes.
On-the-ground results
Recent reporting says the pilot has reached roughly 1,200 youth, about 984 college students and 300 pre-college students, and has provided more than $1 million in direct financial assistance and housing for more than 200 students. As reported by San Antonio Report, those totals reflect the program’s work since 2019. The program’s own impact summary shows related metrics, including thousands reached through targeted outreach, millions in waived tuition and nearly $673,000 disbursed in emergency funds, underscoring how the initiative blends financial aid, housing and case management; see Bexar County Fostering Educational Success for the official tallies.
Why it matters locally
Students who age out of foster care face steep obstacles to college enrollment and completion, and the pilot was built to confront those gaps by stripping away immediate barriers such as housing instability and sudden expenses. UTSA materials describe a Housing First track and campus coaches who focus on stabilizing students so they can concentrate on classes and finishing their degrees. UTSA outlines those housing supports and campus-based services as central parts of the model, which is meant to show what public institutions can do when they coordinate with courts and nonprofits.
Eighmy has said she hopes the pilot will grow so more young people can access stable housing and tuition support, and partners say the model’s lessons should inform broader state and national policy, as reported by San Antonio Report. The Children’s Shelter recognition throws a local spotlight on that goal and on the cross-sector approach leaders built to give foster alumni a clearer path to and through college.
