Photo courtesy of Homewood Helps.
A volunteer sands a bed frame on Oct. 5 at the Homewood Helps bed- building event.
Approximately 1,000 Homewood City Schools students qualified for reduced-cost or free lunches last year, and many students don’t have a bed to sleep in at night.
Homewood Helps, a partnership between the school system and concerned community leaders, is working to address food and bed insecurity for all HCS students.
Spearheaded by David Thompson, the vice president of the HCS Board of Education and executive pastor of Trinity Methodist Church, Homewood Helps strives to provide a bed and access to food outside of school in order to create a level playing field in the classroom.
"We believe that if every student has enough food in their stomach and a quality night of sleep, they’re going to be better in the classroom," Thompson said. "They’re going to be less distracted, they’re going to be able to perform better academically, socially and physically at school, and we felt like this was a problem we could solve in Homewood.”
Thompson said the organization was established to centralize efforts by various groups to offer assistance programs to children and families in Homewood.
"I just felt like there was a way that we could really simplify things, and we started to come together to decide what are a few things that we believe could help our students and families, but are also rooted in our mission at Homewood City Schools to ensure that students reach their unique potential, and that landed on food and beds,” Thompson said.
Families can enroll in the Homewood Helps food assistance program at homewoodhelps.com or are identified as in need of assistance by school staff.
Volunteers pack backpacks of food for children in the elementary and middle schools and send food and toiletries for students at the high school. Katie Smith, the student assistance counselor for HCS, said care is taken to protect each student’s identity and dignity, and assistance is available to any student at any time.
"Our school counselors work to see which family is in need and may benefit from [the program]," Smith said. "Then volunteers from Trinity, historically, have been the ones to pack those weekend food bags, bring them to the schools, and then the school counselors help to just get those home in a discreet way."
Homewood Helps also partners with Sleep In Heavenly Peace, a nonprofit dedicated to providing beds to children in need. Each identified child receives a wooden bed frame, mattress, sheets and a pillow.
“People would be surprised by how many students sleep on couches,” Smith said. “We have families who are intergenerational, and we have families who are, maybe, a large extended family living together, or we have families who have had to move and may not have enough actual beds for everybody."
Thompson said they hold several bed-build events each year, with the most recent producing 60 beds on Oct. 5, and community members are encouraged to volunteer.
"I felt like if the community knows about this, we can all rally together and get on board to solve this problem," Thompson said. "I think it’s something that in our community, our unique setting, we can solve. We can ensure that every kid has enough food and every kid sleeping on the floor has a quality bed."
To donate, volunteer or confidentially sign up for HCS assistance programs, visit homewoodhelps.com.
