Marking Year of Homeless
As a sixth-grade teacher, with the Irvine Unified School District, I have taught a unit on World Hunger for the past three years. This is part of our district curriculum for social studies in the sixth grade. You cannot discuss hunger, at any geographical level, without including the problem of the homeless. I might add that the district curriculum for the fifth grade is human rights, which you cannot teach without discussing the plight of the homeless.
Along with discussing the issue of the homeless worldwide, I have concentrated on the problem in the United States, and, of course, specifically here in Orange County. To add action to our lessons, each Christmas our three sixth-grade classes have adopted families through Share Our Selves (SOS).
The enthusiasm of the students has been so great that for the past three seasons we have adopted three families each Christmas and have provided not only gifts for the entire family but Christmas Day breakfast and dinner, complete with turkey and all of the trimmings. Yes, this is on the issue of hunger, but hunger and homelessness often go hand in hand.
As this, the United Nations Year of the Homeless draws to a close, it makes me quite proud of our city of Irvine and the forward looking City Council, which in all of its compassionate wisdom is doing its part by the recent action taken toward housing our homeless victims. I am proud to have such a role model for my students to observe.
Thank you Larry Agran, Ed Dornan and Ray Catalano for voting for one of the most basic of all human needs--shelter.
MARILYN VASSOS
Irvine
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