2 days ago
Best Austin day ever with Andy Roddick Foundation CEO
With summer's start, things have heated up with the Austin-based Andy Roddick Foundation and its CEO, Jaime Garcia.
Why it matters: The foundation tries to address the opportunity gap by running after-school and summer camps for kids in poorer communities around Austin.
"Those that can fund it are giving their kids more and more experiences, and those that can't are just falling behind during the summer, and they're having to relearn their math and reading all over again," Garcia tells Axios.
By the numbers: Last year, 220 children from Harris, Hart and Pecan Springs elementary schools — in East and Northeast Austin — attended the foundation summer camps.
The chief aim of the camps is to keep up and improve academic skills with 6-to-1 student-to-teacher ratios. "That's like a private school experience," she says, noting outings to museums and spelunking activities at caves.
"The two biggest barriers for any child attending after-school and summer care are cost and access."
Threat level: President Trump's proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 would zero out funding for 21st Century Community Learning Centers, the only federal funding stream dedicated to afterschool and summer programs, per the Afterschool Alliance, a nonprofit that advocates for access to afterschool programs.
As part of our running feature asking Austinites about their best day ever, we met up with Garcia to talk about her ideal day.
Garcia grew up in Houston and came to Austin to attend the University of Texas, where she majored in biology before getting a master's degree in business at Texas State.
She and her husband have raised two daughters in southwest Austin.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
How does your ideal day begin?
"I love meeting our foundation partners at Mozart's and ask how I can support them. Or I go for one-on-ones around the lake, where I find peace and where I love to run — I've run four marathons."
What's next?
"I'm probably hosting a summer tour — it's important for corporations to come through and see the work that's being done. Closing that learning gap means working together. They might see a teacher working on a STEM project with kids. Or how we bring in roller skates and entire kits — how it's tough at first, but how they get the hang of it by week two."
What are you doing for lunch?
"I might meet at the Grove with a supporter of the foundation. They make a great kale salad."
You're meeting with families, too?
"I love the foundation's family nights — we'll serve pizza to the kids and their families at one of the schools, and they can do something like create art together. And we always have middle schoolers and high schoolers who have been through the program who rush in — they love helping out."
And what about you and your family?
"We try to get dinner together. If we're going out, we love Cabo Bob's."
"I grew up in a family where my mom made tortillas every single day of my life. We didn't even use forks because we used tortillas to eat our food. So I'm very picky going into a restaurant — if it's store-bought, it doesn't work for me. Hence Cabo Bob's — they've got homemade tortillas — and they're fun, too."
