A retired San Antonio ISD school bus rolled up to Woodlawn Academy on September 9 carrying something more valuable than a morning commute: stacks of free books for more than 50 kindergarten, second- and third-grade students to take home. The bus, numbered 361, has been reborn as the Book Buddies Bus, a mobile library that gives kids 20 minutes to pick out four books each before it drives off to the next campus.
The transformation was the work of five SAISD bus drivers who converted the donated vehicle into a traveling bookshelf, according to the San Antonio Express-News. Robert Mackey drove the bus on its inaugural school visits while Freddie Martinez monitored students aboard, and the newspaper reports the district itself donated the bus to the SAISD Foundation, the independent nonprofit that runs the program separately from the school district.
The bus is the latest expansion of Book Buddies, a reading program Jane Welch founded in 2014 that the foundation formally adopted in 2019. Since then it has provided new and gently used books, up to an eighth-grade reading level, to SAISD elementary schools and academies, with the program historically distributing roughly 50,000 books a year according to the foundation, per the Express-News account.
A Program Built on Scale and Repetition
The foundation's own tally, released around International Literacy Day, shows just how much that effort has grown. Over the two school years leading into fall 2026, Book Buddies delivered 103,903 free books to 25,975 SAISD students, according to the SAISD Foundation. While individual bus visits give students four books to choose from, the foundation's broader benchmark is to provide up to six free books per student as inventory allows.
Judy Geelhoed has led the SAISD Foundation as executive director since 2009, overseeing the nonprofit's work funding teaching grants, scholarships, and literacy initiatives across the district. Carrie Smith, the foundation's communications and community engagement manager, said the program is designed to circulate books among students long after they climb off the bus. Alana Quiles, who manages the foundation's warehouse at 311 N. Frank Luke Drive, is responsible for keeping the Book Buddies Bus stocked and ready for each school visit, and she has said she enjoys watching children pick out their books.
Kids With Empty Shelves — and One With Over a Thousand Books
The disparities among students the bus serves were stark at Woodlawn Academy. Victor Angotti told the paper he already had 1,278 books at home, while classmate Aria Cruz said she had just 10 — and that reading is more fun than math. Thiago Escalante Nunez picked out a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles paperback and a copy of Duck & Goose during his turn aboard the bus. Eric Gomez said supporting the program shows his daughters that their parents back their education.
Those gaps track with broader data on the district. Texas Education Agency figures show roughly 86.9% of SAISD's approximately 42,500 students are classified as economically disadvantaged, according to the Texas Tribune, with 89.6% of students identified as Hispanic. Home book access is often limited in those households, which is precisely the gap Book Buddies is designed to close.
Research Backs the Reading Push, as Scores Hold Steady
The stakes behind getting more books into homes are backed by research. A five-year randomized evaluation in high-poverty elementary schools, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that multiyear distributions of free home books increased student reading achievement by up to 0.207 standard deviations on state standardized tests, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Meanwhile, on the spring 2026 STAAR exams, 54% of Texas elementary and middle school students met grade-level reading standards, and SAISD's reading performance held steady, as reported by Texas Public Radio. The district is preparing to roll out a new universal reading curriculum for the 2026–2027 school year.
Book Buddies isn't the foundation's only current initiative — it recently helped fund mud kitchens and water play spaces at three San Antonio schools, part of a broader push into outdoor early-childhood learning that Hoodline previously reported. Geelhoed has also spoken publicly about the foundation's philanthropic scholarship funding amid broader budget pressures facing San Antonio schools this fall.
Funders and Volunteers Keep the Bus Running
Keeping the Book Buddies Bus stocked depends on philanthropic partners. The Texas Cavaliers Charitable Foundation, which has distributed more than $13 million to local children's charities through profits from events like the Fiesta River Parade, supports the program through grants and corporate volunteer days. The John and Florence Newman Foundation also backs Book Buddies, per the Express-News reporting.
The books themselves pass through a Saturday sorting operation at the foundation's warehouse at Port San Antonio, off Highway 90 on the city's West Side, where volunteers clean, inspect, and organize donations before loading them onto the bus, per the foundation. Community members can drop off book donations there Saturdays between 9 a.m. and noon.
A Prototype With Pandemic Roots — and a Second Bus on the Horizon
The mobile-bus concept isn't entirely new for the district. Before retrofitting bus No. 361, SAISD and its foundation ran a temporary summer program called Roll Into Reading in 2020 and 2021, using school buses and community partners like Whataburger to drop off books at summer meal sites, according to KSAT. That effort served as an early prototype for the fully converted bus now visiting campuses.
The initiative also fills a void left by the city itself. San Antonio's public library system discontinued its own municipal bookmobile service in 2013 due to budget cuts, according to MySA, leaving school-district and nonprofit mobile units to fill the community outreach gap ever since. The foundation now plans to expand Book Buddies further and secure a second bus, which would extend service to students in fourth through eighth grades — a jump beyond the elementary focus the current bus serves.
