Posted on September 2, 2010 by GISELLE ROUTHIER Fifth-grader Olivia Oldham asks fellow students to pitch in and help homeless kids. In yesterday’s Huffington Post, Olivia had this to say: I’m so excited for the new school year: the new classrooms, seeing friends again. But the best and most brilliant feeling is when I step into Staples and smell the scent of fresh notebooks and pencils. I load my cart with all the supplies I could possibly need. I fill my awesome, new backpack and feel it thud against my back on my way to school. Many kids in homeless shelters don’t know that feeling. You may not even have realized that there are homeless kids in the city, but there are about 15,000 living in shelters. And while you can’t really change that, you can help them start their school year as good as anyone else’s. Give them the chance this September to zip open a new backpack filled with supplies. That’s the whole idea of Coalition for the Homeless’ Project: Back to School. When kids (and their parents) buy their own school supplies they buy a new backpack, fill it with some supplies and donate it to a homeless kid. You can provide this unforgettable feeling of excitement from having a new backpack on the first day of school! Can you believe it? You can improve things for a kid just your age! I do Project: Back to School every year because I realize that pretty much everyone in my school has something that a whole lot of kids wish they could have. It would be really great if everyone in my fifth grade class donated one backpack, because then we could make a whole classroom of kids happy. And everyone in my class would know that same feeling of pride you get from helping another kid. Ways that you can help: •Start a school supply drive at your school. •Raise money, which the coalition can use to purchase more school supplies. •Make a one-time donation!
