MARQUETTE — November is homeless awareness month and one local organization is doing what they can to help homeless students in our area.

Today the U.P. McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Program received backpacks, snacks, books and other materials to the Marquette-Alger Regional Educational Service Agency facility to distribute later this week. This backpack program is only one of the services they offer to families.

U.P. McKinney-Vento Grant Coordinator Kristen Peterson says, “When a family is maybe having some issues with housing – they don’t have school supplies or all the forms that they need for enrollment – and so that’s where homeless education and the McKinney-Vento Program really comes in.”

They also had some help unloading the truck today and packing the backpacks from students from the MARESA Classroom Program. The program is for post-high-school, young adults who have special needs. Students in this class took a break from the classroom where they learn job skills to help the community.

MARESA Transition Student Sam Bradbury says, “It’s to pack backpacks for kids who don’t have backpacks, so we do a lot of that stuff. We helped by going in the truck and unloading it. It was a good group today, and we appreciated all your hard work, and we should feed the children if they just want some food to eat.”

ABC 10 will have more on the backpack distribution later this week.