For homeless children, a normal school experience is almost an impossibility: drifting between shelters and motels means parents can't register a permanent address with a district. Moving from district to district and school to school is emotionally and academically difficult. In many cases, children of hardworking families that can never quite save up enough money to move into permanent housing just stop going to school.
In 1989, schoolteacher Anne Robinson recognized this problem and began teaching homeless children in parks out of the back of her station wagon. Her vision has since grown and flourished into Project Hope School, which is now part of the Orange County Department of Education and serves about 150 children per year. Project Hope School's main goal is to prepare homeless youngsters to become academically prepared, self-confident, and capable, so they can transition into the public school system and eventually break the cycle of poverty.
This year-round school is located in Orange, and has a partnership with the Boys & Girls Club, which facilitates its services. K-8 students are picked up around 7 a.m., have a half-day of academic lessons, participate in after-school programs, and are dropped off around 6 p.m. If they move overnight, their families can notify the Boys & Girls Club, and they will be picked up from their new location the next morning.
“A consistent half-day program all year round helps the kids and families,” explains Pam Allison, the executive director of the Project Hope School Foundation. “It helps because they can't afford child care, and it prevents the kids from falling behind academically.”
When Pam started volunteering six years ago, the Foundation had just been established to help raise money for transportation costs. Since then, its volunteers have helped raise $200,000 a year to implement an after-school program, a string music program, field trips, counseling, and a supplementary art program. Pam said she sees the results of their volunteer efforts daily.
“We have one family where the mom went from being married, having a large house, and a six-figure income to being single, losing her job, and losing her house within a year,” Pam explains. “She ended up homeless and had to have friends and family take care of her kids. When she got back on her feet, she enrolled her kids at our school. For her, it was a lifesaver. Her kids can go to school year round, they take food bags home for the weekend on Friday, and now she's saving money to buy a house. Who knows what would have happened to her if she couldn't have her kids in school year round?”
Project Hope School means a lot to the families it serves; its success depends largely on the generosity of the Orange County community. There are currently three teachers, each of whom teaches three grade levels in one classroom, which isn't ideal. Pam says that in order to grow, they need donations and volunteers who can commit to helping out at least one day a week.
“What's interesting is that many people don't know there is homelessness in Orange County, when in fact there are an estimated 22,000 homeless children, [according to] a U.S. Department of Education statistic,” Pam explains. “We serve a very small portion of those, but we are serving kids who would otherwise not go to school consistently. Our mission is to provide them with a public alternative education so they can be academically prepared, capable members of society.”
With the support of the community, Project Hope School can turn stories of helplessness into stories of hope for the most innocent victims of poverty. To find out how you can help give OC's underprivileged kids a brighter future, visit www.projecthopeschool.org.
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Project Hope School Foundation
(714) 796-8731
343 E. Grove Avenue
Orange, CA 92865
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27601 Forbes Rd, Suite 6 • Laguna Niguel, CA 92677
ON JULY 26, 2010, HBO PREMIERED A DOCUMENTARY FILM (FROM FILMMAKER ALEXANDRA PELOSI) TITLED HOMELESS: THE MOTEL KIDS OF ORANGE COUNTY, WHICH FOLLOWED “CURRENT AND FORMER HOPE SCHOOL STUDENTS LIVING IN MOTELS AS THEIR FAMILIES STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE IN SOME OF THE WEALTHIEST ZIP CODES IN AMERICA.”
Project Hope School on HBO
{ BY ALEXANDRA BAIRD }
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