MPS Homeless Education Program Bio & Cricket Carnival Donation

Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) is the largest school district in the state of Wisconsin. As of 2007 it has an enrollment of 87,360 students and as of 2006 employs 6,100 full-time and substitute teachers in 223 schools. The Milwaukee Public Schools system is the 28th largest in the United States and one amongst the poorest in the country. For several years, Milwaukee ranked among the ten most dangerous large cities in the United States, however in recent years, Milwaukee no longer appears even among the top 25 most dangerous cities. However, despite its improvement, Milwaukee still fares worse than average when comparing specific crime types to the national average (e.g., homicide, rape, robbery); only aggravated assaults occur less frequently in Milwaukee than the national average.Of persons in Milwaukee aged 25 and above, 84.5% have a high school diploma, and 27% have a Bachelor's degree or higher.Milwaukee Public School (MPS) Homeless Education Program (HEP)Organization Profile and Background:

According to the McKinney-Vento Act, homeless is described as someone that is living doubled up with another family or person because they have no choice, someone that is staying in a shelter (including a domestic abuse shelters), a child awaiting for foster family placement, someone staying in places such as motels, hotels, cars, parks, or an abandoned building. Milwaukee Public Schools has created the (HEP) Homeless Education Program to help support families with children that are homeless, or are soon to face homelessness. The program is supported by and run under federal law and regulations that all public schools must provide services to all students, including homeless children. A part of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Families that face homelessness are encouraged to seek out assistance through MPS for services offered to their kids. Children that are homeless may receive free breakfast, lunch, and waived school fees. Homeless children that face moving from locations to different locations are serviced with transportation so that the child does not face moving from school to school. The children under this program also receive school supplies, backpacks and other services such as clothes. Additional to school supplies, food, and clothes HEP also assists in medical needs such as immunizations and the retrievals of medical records. They help and assist homeless families get the medical attention that they need to keep the child healthy and ready to learn. HEP also has tutoring programs, before and after school programs, arranging of book supplies to families that may not have access to have books for their kids at home, translation and interpreting services, referral to social services in the community, and also assistance to have an appeal in court if their services in the community or school has not been met or if it has been denied.

As a Vibha Milwaukee Action Center, we raise funds for the projects that are already established with in the organization in India and here in the US, but as an action center, we are also able to reach out to organizations and needs with in our own community that we feel matches our Vibha mission statements. Amongst one of the goals and putting together a fundraiser or event, we had to establish something with in the community that we wanted to donate some of the proceeds. MPS HEP was what we wanted to support and get involved in. We proposed to Vibha head quarters before our event that we wanted to donate 15% of our proceeds to go towards this cause and was approved.MPS HEP was established 1989, with re-authorization and changes made in 2002. The project is ongoing as per Federal Law, for public schools to support the homeless. As mentioned what MPS HEP is all about, we as an action center here in Milwaukee contact the organizers Cathy Klein, Sue Norris, Janice Shogres to proceed with our involvement and donation in August of 08 and kept contact with them until our event/fundraiser was completedOur Cricket Carnival Event on August 13/14 and 17th was a complete success and we were able to donate $500 to MPS HEP on Oct 14th.

On Oct 14th, 2008 Milwaukee Vibha Coordinator, Ashish Rastogi and Volunteer Marie Yang met with Janish Shogres at the MPS Administration Building where the MPS HEP program office is located. There they discussed in length about the HEP program, the needs, concerns, problems and how we can better help them in the future. Janice gave us a tour of the offices and storage rooms, and went in length about the process of admitting families into the program. Also we had a chance to talk about Vibha Milwaukee, how it was founded and what we are all about. It gave us a chance to connect and reach out to the community here in Milwaukee as an action center for Vibha.