How businesses and community groups can help homeless students

One of the goals of the BCIU Homeless Children's Initiative (HCI) is to ensure that homeless students have the necessary items to attend school. This includes school clothes or uniforms, shoes, book bags, and school supplies.

Sponsor a book bag drive

Several local businesses and organizations, including BCIU, Boscov’s, Carpenter Technology, Office Depot, United Way, and Feed the Children have sponsored book bag drives to provide school supplies and book bags to local homeless students. In some cases, businesses purchased book bags and have invited employees and/or customers to fill them with school supplies for children of various ages. Individuals have also been encouraged to select and donate both the book bags and the supplies.

Once filled with school supplies, such as pens, pencils, crayons, pencil boxes, paper, and notebooks, etc., the book bags are donated to the program site coordinator, who sees to it that they are distributed to Berks County homeless students that need them. This project can be conducted at any time of year.

Donate school uniforms and/or school attire

Employees from the junior buying office of Boscov’s, working in partnership with Boscov’s department store, purchased new school attire for 17 homeless students with funds raised during a junior’s sale for co-workers.

Click here, to read the news release, Boscov’s Associates Donate School Clothing to Benefit Homeless Students.

For more information about the rights of homeless students in Berks, Chester, Dauphin, Lancaster, Lebanon, and Schuylkill Counties, please contact Beth Winterbottom, regional coordinator, by phone at 610-987-8509, by fax at 610-987-8400, or via e-mail at betwin@berksiu.org.

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