SPOKANE, WA – Spokane Public Schools’ Homeless Education and Resouce Team or HEART program is getting ready to collect resources for students who don’t have a place to call home.
From Nov. 19 to Dec. 10, HEART is collecting gift cards of any denomination that can be gifted to students in need before schools let out for winter break.
“This gift card is different in that it is a gift to say, we see you, we care about you, and we want you to be able to celebrate this holiday season in a way that best suits you,” said Sarah Miller, the SPS liaison for McKinney-Vento.
“We are seeing a lot more students who have that housing instability happening just across our entire district,” Miller said.
New statistics show that the number of kids experiencing housing instability in the SPS district has increased by 28 percent since last year.
The HEART program has identified 1222 students across grade levels K-12 who do not have a regular place to call home and go to bed each night.
Of these students, 277 are living without a direct parental guardian.
In October, SPS reached out to Project Beauty Share and asked for a donation of personal hygiene products to keep up with student demand.
Project Beauty Share put out a social media post to spread awareness and within a few weeks, donations from the community began pouring in.
“We’ve gotten over 700 pounds of supplies donated for this,” said Sarah Lundback, warehouse coordinator for Project Beauty Share. “And we’re trying to collect for another week before we hand off to the schools.”
Project Beauty share says the goal is to collect 1,000 pounds of donations for SPS, but that still might not be enough to help every kid in need.
“There won’t be enough to go to every single kid, but we’ll try and get to as many as we can,” Lundback said.
To donate a gift card to the HEART program’s gift card drive, you can:
Drop off or mail gift cards to the SPS administration building (200 N. Bernard St., Spokane WA, 99201, c/o Communications Dept).Bring a gift card to your neighborhood SPS school office.Donate online to the HEART Trust (“select HEART Program Donations”)
To donate new or gently used personal hygiene products to Project Beauty Share, you can:
Mail or frop off donations to the warehouse, located at 2718 E. Sprague Ave. Spokane, WA 99202Shop on their Amazon wishlist:https://www.amazon.com/…/2O9D99B…/ref=cm_sw_em_r_z_g__wb
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