True confessions. I hate to admit this, but I used to be a badass substitute teacher and would have a look of disdain when students would ask me for paper and pencils. For the life of me, I could not understand why parents were so lazy that they could not even drive their kids to the store for basic school supplies. After all, I was the mom who drove to Walgreens at midnight for that darn poster board no one told me they needed until the last minute. Didn’t everyone do that?
One day while subbing in art class in Lakota, a student abruptly stood up and threw all of her textbooks at the table of four guys sitting next to her. I approached to ask if the boys had said something to upset her. Before I could even finish my question, she emptied the trash can and hurled it across the room aiming at those same young men and then emptied the recycling bin and launched it across the room, too. She fled and I called for help.
When I left that day, I stopped by to talk to the on-site sheriff and asked if she was going to be ok. He told me that she had no home to call her own. She was bounced from one house to the next, living with different relatives and moving schools based on where the relatives lived.
I wondered how many other homeless kids had crossed my paths in my years of subbing. Was it the kids whom asked me for school supplies? Or the young man who carried a broken cell phone just to fit in? Or the kids wearing tennis shoes that were two sizes too small? I was a judgmental insensitive fool and I was incredibly sorry.
From that day on, I decided to carry my own stash of notebook paper and pencils and dole out these basic school supplies to anyone who asks. No judging.
Family Promise of Butler County recently released the Official Homeless Count Numbers for the 2018/2019 school year. As of May 2019, there were 182 homeless students in Lakota, 685 in Hamilton, 190 in Middletown, and 162 in Fairfield. For the previous year, the total for Butler County was 901. This past year it was 1,354, an increase of 453 children. If you include the number of homeless children under the age of 5 the number is much greater.
So, yes, there are homeless kids in my/our school district. Our work with local schools, ministries with Family Promise, Stepping Forward, Reach Out Lakota, and engagement with local leaders are essential to our communities and these children.
To be continued…
Lauri Vesper
Lauri is one of our Family Promise co-ordinators.