Macomb, IL – The Feed the Children Foundation is providing backpacks with school supplies and food to more than 11-hundred children in west central Illinois.
Eileen Worthington is the homeless education coordinator for the regional office of education. She says the supplies will be distributed to schools, who will then give the materials to the students.
Worthington says rural homeless students do not fit the usual perception of those in cities. In small towns, they are often temporarily staying with relatives or friends, and moving from house to house.
She says a number of the older children are couch-surfing with friends after leaving home or being kicked out. Some also camp at parks or unoccupied rural homesteads.