With the short month of February, here we are again at the last Friday of the month and time for another round of good news with the We Are the World Blogfest #WATWB. The blogfest is the brainchild of Damyanti Biswas to highlight a news story that “shows love, humanity, and brotherhood.”
My blog today is about a school designed for, and by, homeless children.
Architect’s rendering of the school for homeless kids in Oklahoma City.
Homelessness is a huge issue throughout the country, and nothing is more heart wrenching than the thought of children having no place to call home—living in shelters, cars or vans, or worse, on the street.
Positive Tomorrows, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to end homelessness, asked homeless children in Oklahoma City to submit drawings of what their ideal school would contain. The most common wish among the kids was to have “a place to spend quality time with other kids, and additional rooms to serve as their own personalized spaces.”
As the article states, “Although these requests may seem relatively simple, they indicate the students’ need for both community and consistency – two things that they rarely experience when they are having to constantly move from one shelter, couch, garage, or basement to the next.”
Construction on the school has begun, and it will provide a refuge for approximately 200 underprivileged children. Besides classrooms, the school will include a living room, family room, a gym, and a stocked kitchen.
You can read more about this wonderful project here https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/new-school-designed-for-homeless-kids-in-okc/
Also, check out the following bloggers and any blog with the #WATWB.
Belinda Witzenhausen, Eric Lahti, Inderpreet Uppal, Mary Giese, Michelle Wallace, Peter Nena, Roshan Radhakrishnan, Simon Falk, Susan Scott, Sylvia McGrath, Sylvia Stein, Andrea Michaels, Peter Nena, Dan Antion, Shilpa Garg
You’re welcome to join the blogfest and “speak for peace.” Blogs are posted the last day of each month. Read the details here.
Please tell us in the comments what good news you have to share!
Linda Covella, Author 
What a wonderful project, Linda. Thank you for sharing. I hadn’t heard of Positive Tomorrows before and the wonderful work they are doing. I’m not aware of anything like that here in Australia.
Thank you, Norah. Hopefully ideas like Positive Tomorrows will spread. Do you have a large homeless population in Australia?
We don’t have huge numbers, but there are still far too many.
Yes, too many worldwide. Thanks, Norah.
What a wonderful project. Here in Sacramento, we have Mustard Seed School that offers classes to homeless children, but nothing like the Positive Tomorrows above. Homelessness is a terrible problem everywhere, including Sacramento, and we just don’t have enough facilities addressing that. Loaves and Fishes offers food, Bannon Street offers temporary shelter, as does Mary House (for women & children). But I see far too many of them under freeways, just trying to survive. Thanks, too for the links to We Are The World. I will check them out.
I think too many people “blame” the homeless, or think they want to live that way. It’s especially heartbreaking that so many children are homeless. Mustard Seed sounds wonderful, at least something to help. We have some help for the homeless here in Santa Cruz, but not even close to what’s needed. Thanks, Elizabeth.
This is truly an exciting and heart-warming story, and I hope it proves an inspiration to many other cities as well. We have such a far way to come providing for those in need, but certainly a main focus ought to be our huge population of homeless children. Thanks for sharing!
Yes, we have a long way to go to help the homeless. And more and more people are ending up living this way. I know there are other organizations besides Positive Tomorrows trying to help, but we need some type comprehensive program, an umbrella under which these orgs can connect and show other cities how to help. Thanks for your comment, Deborah.
Positive Tomorrows seems such a fantastic initiative! I love they are empowering kids by giving them a voice. Thanks so much for sharing this and for participating in #WATWB!
Belinda,thank you! Yes, having the kids participate makes a huge difference to their lives now and their futures. thanks also for your participation in #WATWB. Such a great thing Damyanti started!
It looks like such a fantastic initiative. Actually Damyanti and I started it together, very lucky to work with her on this.
Oh, thanks to you, too, Belinda, for #WATWB!
Thanks Linda – a heart warming initiative indeed! I like the quoted saying in the link that if I start a lego project I may not be here tomorrow to finish it – that for me had a particular resonance. Children need consistency, and community.
Thanks, Susan. I see your blog is a story about kindness toward a homeless person. Another heartwarming story!
Hi Linda – congratulations on posting this up – Positive Tomorrows sounds an amazing project … and the fact the kids are involved – will give them a sense of community … and as Susan above says consistency too. So interesting to read about the other initiatives in cities and towns covered by our friends in WAWTB – great good thanks to you and Damyanti for starting off WAWTB … cheers Hilary
Thanks for reading and for your comment, Hilary. Just a clarification: Belinda (see her comment below) and Damyanti started WATWB. 🙂