This is a photo of a young person living out of his car......
Yes-- we have homelessness in East Penn...
We met with Superintendent Kristen Campbell, the Assistant Superintendent Doug Povilaitis, and the Director of Student Services Thomas Mirabella, on Friday morning, January 25, 2019, at the EPSD offices in Emmaus. The Lions, Lioness, Kiwanis, and Rotary are trying to creatively come up with ideas on how to help with the hunger situation in East Penn. Some statistics:
1.) There are 42 homeless families in our district. They sleep in their cars, couch surf, or live on the streets.
2.) Lincoln, Jefferson, and Alburtis, have 365 students on subsidized or free lunches (over 36%)
3.) There are 1010 students in those schools
4.) Almost 28% of all students in the East Penn School District are on some form of free or subsidized lunch program
The good news is that we made some progress, however, as in all good deeds it takes time so we do it right. We will start small and keep everyone in the loop. We are open to all when we figure this out. Help comes in all forms for these students. This is what we do; we discover a problem, we leverage our resources (volunteers, experience, and money) to help give these students a shot at a better life. I will continue to shed light on this difficult subject in the weeks ahead.
Please remember --
there will not be a morning meeting this week at Brookside CC.
It will be Thursday evening at the High School Cafeteria on Pine St.
Yours in service,
Rick Zayaitz