It's that time of the year - graduation, prom, summer vacation - an exciting time for students.  All over the country, in big towns and small ones, graduation speakers will talk about dreams..."dream the dream and make it come true. " Or they will ask students not to give up on their dreams. Or perhaps they will talk about self reliance, that the best helping hand you can have is the one on the end of your arm.   They may talk about the beginning of the next step, the next phase, the vast potential that is yours if you seize it.
Unfortunately, those speeches aren't written for most of the homeless kids we see every day.  This is not because they don't have big dreams or huge potential.  It's because it's so darn hard for them to get an education.   First of all, over one-fifth of homeless kids do not even go to school.  For those who do, the educational system has a hard time doing what it's supposed to do.   Constant moves from shelter to shelter push the homeless student further and further behind in school.  Can you remember what it was like to start a new school? How about four or five in a school year?  The dread of new teachers and students, the lack of supplies to work in school, being hungry, not sleeping well or having a quiet place to do homework -- these are all the obstacles that homeless children face every day.   So it's hardly surprising that they quickly fall far below their grade levels.  Homeless children are on average nine times more likely to repeat a grade than housed students and four times more likely to drop out of school entirely.
And yet.........in this newsletter, you will read about some of our amazing students and their graduation stories.   They make it sound easy. But the perseverance, resilience and courage it takes for a homeless student to graduate, whether from elementary, middle, or high school is astonishing. The odds they beat would put Las Vegas out of business.  
For them, the best helping hand just might have been yours.   Our goal is to give them the support and the courage to dream big dreams and make them come true.  With your help, we will continue to do just that every day.  From the bottom of my heart, thank you to each of you for helping make dreams come true and congratulations to every one of our School on Wheels students.  
With appreciation,