Siblings who frequented shelter as kids return decades later to donate $11,000

The Lawson family said they found comfort and safety at the shelter, both things their mentally ill mother sometimes could not provide.

The siblings are now in their 50s and came together to make the donation.

"We want the children to feel what we felt," Gail Lawson Menefee told KSAT. "We felt safety (at the shelter). We felt loved. We felt full, you know, in our bellies because of the food."

According to The Children's Shelter, the siblings, who spent time at the shelter in the 1970s, live in different regions but reunited in San Antonio to make the donation.

"We want the children to come back and feel that because it was scary being full of so much anxiety and fear and not knowing when your parents are going to come home, not knowing here your next meal is going to come from," Lawson Menefee said.

The shelter said the money will continue its mission "to restore innocence and strengthen families." KSAT reported that the shelter said the money will be used to fed and cloth children.