Paying it forward: Helping the Homeless

The Sherman High School Criminal Justice Club has joined forces with the Grayson College Police Department to try and raise money for one of our local disabled veterans who is homeless. He is a familiar sight in the Sherman area. He is frequently seen pushing his bicycle with a cart of all of his possessions attached to it. He is a war veteran and blind in one eye. He sometimes is able to stay at the local homeless shelter, but it costs money and they have a limited amount of time they can stay there during one period. He has been spotted throughout the area sleeping under bridges, behind buildings, in fields, or wherever else he decided to stop for the night. A friend of ours, Heather Keener, once shared this picture of his bicycle and cart, and asked people to reach out and help him. A wonderful citizen paid for a hotel room for him to stay in and get out of the cold for one night. This act of kindness really moved our criminal justice students. Each year, they are required to do a "Community Outreach" project. They decided for their project they would donate a Saturday to work at a local animal rescue group. But they didn't want to stop there. They donated toys to "Toys for Tots" and they held  a clothing and toy drive for local SISD students in need. Instead of just doing one outreach project for the year, they decided to have a yearlong project where they could really make the difference in one person't life. It was voted to create a "Pay It Forward" act where they would try to raise money to help him out. Our classroom has donated money towards water bottle purchases and raised approximately $40.00 from those. Some Criminal Justice students have also donated some of their own money for the cause, raising a total of $80. Once they started working to raise money, they decided that one night was not enough for a hotel room (especially with cold winter nights and the holidays coming up) so they wanted to increase their goal to raise enought money to pay for a week's stay at a hotel, purchase him new clothes, shower items,  blankets, and food throughout the week. We know this time of the year expenses are tight with Christmas around the corner, but we hope that you will find it in your hearts to donate whatever you can to help a local veteran who served our county and has literally been left in the cold. Every little bit helps. We will continously update this page and post things our club does to help this gentleman. You can also follow the club on facebook at SHS Criminal Justice Club or like the Grayson College Police Department page. We want to share with you, the community, the love and support you show our students and veterans. Thank you so much for your time and we hope you have a very Blessed Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

~The Sherman High School Criminal Justice Club and Grayson College Police Department

KTEN: our GoFundMe project made the news! So proud of our students and community!

We have officially changed our fundraiser name to Paying it Forward: Helping the Homeless and increased our goal to $5,000! We are thrilled to announce that today our club has decided to extend our fundraising efforts to help out more homeless in our community! We are starting with baby steps and elected today to help out another homeless man, a friend of Robert's whose name is Roger Williams. You may have heard of him before as he is the gentleman that Robert gave his extra blankets to. With the bitter cold temperatures expected to continue throughout the week, we surprised Roger with a week at Crossroads Motel on Texoma Parkway. He, too, was also so extremely thankful to us for doing that for him. He only had enough money for one night tonight. That was unacceptable. I also gave him a package of socks I had with me in the car, as that's all he asked for. Our club hopes to raise enough money to continue helping both Robert and Roger, and maybe some more homeless in our area in the future. Thank you for your continued support. It's because of you all that we are changing lives!