MHS student's act of selflessness to help the homeless

Daunted by the alarming fact that one out of every three homeless people are under the age of 18, Martin High School senior student Fernando Medina started Aeropostale "Teens for Jeans" at his campus empowering his classmates to help take action against youth homelessness by collecting close to 1,000 denim pants.

About 1.6 to 1.7 million people under the age of 18 will experience homelessness each year. The National Coalition for the homeless defines homeless youth as individuals under the age of eighteen who lack parental, foster, or institutional care. This year many homeless teens in our area are receiving jeans thanks to the generosity and contributions of Martin High School students.

Medina, who currently holds a part-time job at Aeropostale, heard of this opportunity to help homeless children and families from his store manager. He felt that not only would this serve as a great way to assist those in need but by doing a selfless act and getting his fellow peers to contribute, the project would help shed a positive light on the campus all while serving others. He began by soliciting help and support from his school principal, Oscar Perez, and teachers Javier Vasquez, Carl Medina, Angela Tellez and Cristina Criel.

All administration, faculty, staff, and students were in complete agreement and were supportive of this initiative. Senior English teacher Cristina Criel even gave out gift cards as an incentive to help collect jeans from the student body. In addition, students at Martin High School were given three community service hours for each jean that was donated. Daily announcements were made throughout the month of February and signage was posted around the campus asking for contributions. Medina also visited with International Bank of Commerce representatives asking them to have their locations serve as drop-off sites for the collection.

The collection was held in early February and resulted with MHS students donating 1,000 jeans. The jeans were taken to Aeropostale and will later be donated to the Bethany House. Medina was humbled by this experience and overwhelmed by the act of kindness from his fellow peers. This is the first of many projects and ideas that Medina plans to host at his campus.

"I felt that this project hit close to home because I have seen many students struggle by not having the type of clothing others have," he said. "I put myself in those individuals position and imagine not being able to have clothes for school or simply to survive."



Fernando Mediana displays some of the jeans that were collected during the "Teens for Jeans" campaign at Martin High School.