Since 2013, Smart Choices Texas has been committed to improving the quality of life for individuals and families in underserved communities.
We have supported over 30,000 individuals and families in overcoming crises and rebuilding their lives. Our focus is on children, older adults, Veterans, and individuals with disabilities, offering innovative programs designed to help them reach their full potential. We believe in ensuring access to nutritious food for all, providing essential resources to meet life’s basic needs, and empowering people to thrive and uplift their neighbors.
About Us
Smart Choices Texas is a private, nonprofit corporation that began in 2013 in Saint Louis, Missouri. In alignment with our mission we strive to transform the lives of our most vulnerable populations. Our goal is to help reduce poverty, educate children, save our youth from street life, and to help our neighbors become financially self-sufficient so they may grow and thrive.
We are dedicated to helping those in need rebuild their lives and reach their full potential. Resources include assistance for basic needs such as food and clothing, mental health counseling, emergency assistance, employment help/job training, street outreach for homeless youth, after-school programming, high-impact academic tutoring, domestic disaster relief, affordable homeownership, small business development and Supportive Services for Veteran Families.
Smart Choices Texas is a tax-exempt registered 501(c)(3) Nonprofit Organization.
Our Mission
Smart Choices Texas has a mission to transform the lives of our most vulnerable populations; Children, older adults, Veterans, and people with disabilities. We work to banish poverty and nourish underserved communities through education, social service, mental health, and financial security programs. Cultivating a path of smarter, healthier, stronger, abundant communities.
Our Vision
The vision is to foster good health, good nutrition, positive energy, human dignity, and the opportunity for individuals to meet their full potential. Breaking destructive generational cycles developing prosperous families. Thus fueling the future by empowering people with knowledge, tools, and the resources they need to elevate.
Organizational Strategy
Our organizational strategy is grounded in research, planning, action, and the relentless pursuit to help end poverty. At the heart of our approach is a commitment to the “3C’s” Caring, Compassion, and Charity.
Statement of Welcome, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination Policy
Smart Choices Texas welcomes people of every age, race, color, gender identity, nation of origin, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religious/faith tradition, and physical ability. Expressions and/or behaviors which do not affirm this are not permitted. We seek full inclusion and equality by using education, compassion, caring, and charity.
We do not discriminate of the basis of race, creed, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, height, weight, physical or mental ability, veteran status, military obligations, or marital status.
Our Core Values.
EMPOWERMENT
We celebrate the potential in people to build stronger, long-term success.
INTEGRITY
Reliable, trusted to do what's right, transparent, & strong.
WE LOVE OUR COMMUNITY
We hold ourselves accountable by creating programs that elevate the community.
SERVICE TO OTHERS
We put our words into action.
TEAMWORK
Ego's aside, everyone plays an important role in our mission.
In 2013, our Founder & Executive Director’s daughter joined the Girls Scouts of America and almost every night of the week her daughter’s friends asked to stay over for dinner. After chatting with their parents she discovered the families were experiencing food shortages also known as “Food Insecurity”. Mrs. McKinley began providing the families with monthly care packages that included not only food but paper products, laundry items, and toiletries also.
They asked what was her secret? How was she able to afford groceries & Etc. for three families including her own? Simple, Mrs. McKinley is a Survival Enthusiast/Prepper and an Extreme Couponer. Therefore, the majority of the items were ALL FREE!
Mrs. McKinley decided to share her special skills & knowledge with the families and she held free classes in her basement back in Missouri. She taught them homesteading: Emergency preparedness, couponing, financial planning, canning, sewing, and other valuable survival skills. They even went fishing several times a year. Which made fantastic family-fun events. Within a few months each of the families she helped had a deep freezer full of food, fully stocked pantry, and a well-organized stockpile of household essentials. The group grew a strong bond and started feeding the homeless, hosting toy/food drives, and donation events to benefit various local nonprofit children’s organizations.
Helping the community had become a passion for Mrs. McKinley and inspired her to form the nonprofit Smart Choices St. Louis in 2013. An organization dedicated to at-risk youth with a major focus on after-school education, mental health, and nutrition. Due to a career opportunity with Texas Instruments Mrs. McKinley relocated to the Dallas area in 2018.
To continue her mission, she formed Smart Choices Texas. We work in conjunction with Elementary – High Schools throughout the Dallas-Fort-Worth area. School principals, truancy officers, and counselors refer youth who are identified as at-risk to our nonprofit. Our other services and programs focus on our most vulnerable populations – older adults, Veterans, and people with disabilities, however everyone is welcome.
Thank You Donors, Partners, and Sponsors for your support
