Chris Curle / Special to the Eagle

Costco Naples Marketing Director Wendy Knaggs and marketing staffer David Longfield-Smith load backpacks that Costco is donating to homeless and other needy children at public schools on Marco.

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Sandi Riedemann, executive director of the Marco Island Area Chamber of Commerce with some of the supplies being donated to Collier County homeless children through Hope & Help.

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Donna Niemczyk and Vicki Williams of the Marco Island Area Chamber of Commerce with some of the supplies they are donating to Collier County homeless children through Hope & Help.

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Many of the homeless children can’t afford proper school clothes, but now, Uniforms Unlimited on Collier Boulevard is pitching in with free uniforms for the kids with discount vouchers from funds raised by the Chamber of Commerce.

MARCO ISLAND — Meet Sally. She attends Tommie Barfield Elementary on Marco Island. Sally comes to school hungry most mornings, eager to have the free breakfast provided there.

She gets a free lunch too, but after school, Sally never knows when, where or even whether she might get supper.

Her clothing isn’t always as presentable as it might be. Her hair is dull and seems not to have seen a brush or shampoo lately.

She’s tired a lot and listless sometimes. One day Sally told her teacher about her “home” life.

“We sleep in our car a lot and we took our baths last night at a restaurant bathroom,” she said. Sally isn’t old enough to grasp completely the concept of being homeless. But she is without a consistent place to eat and sleep, one of the estimated 30 or so Tommie Barfield students known to be legally homeless.

Experts say the Marco Island Charter Middle School also has some homeless youngsters, but that adolescents and teens often hide their dire situations. Some are humiliated by it. Others fear that if they’re found out they might have to go to foster homes.

“Sally” is a composite of the homeless children in our schools. Obviously we won’t identify individual situations.

If you are surprised to hear we have homeless school children here, you’re not alone. But you may not be surprised to hear that the situation is worsening as economic conditions hit hard, causing already strapped families to lose their homes and their jobs.

Says Karen Morgan, the county school district’s liaison for education of homeless students, “We now are being confronted with an influx of what I call the newly homeless.” Newly homeless?

“Many of them are not accustomed to being in this situation. The parents might have lost jobs in sales, maybe real estate, and they’re not used to not having any money to pay rent. Many have moved in with friends to save money or they stay in cheap motels when they can afford it.”

So is that what homeless means? Isn’t a homeless person some drunk or deranged street guy living under a viaduct?

Not here, not now. Local experts say the fastest growing segment of the homeless population is single parents, mostly mothers with children. Most of the homeless children are not orphans.

In terms of education, the Federal government defines a homeless student as one who has no fixed, regular or adequate night-time residence.

One slang expression, meant to be descriptive not derogatory, is “couch surfers.”

“It means for example a mother and child who move in with another family and sleep on the couch,” explains Karen Morgan. “A lot of teenagers are couch surfing, living from one home to another, a week or two or maybe a month at a time.

“Homeless teenagers are really good about trying to stay under the radar. They think they are being independent, but they’re only marginally taking care of themselves.”

Fundamentally they are involuntary nomads. Karen Morgan has an example of real life for some local children.

“This family of two parents and four kids lived at Friendship House in Immokalee for several months, but they returned to Naples and chose to live in their car.

“Shelter living is very difficult. Intact families are separated because they have a women’s wing and the men’s dorm. You have to get up at a certain time, take a shower at a certain time, lights out at a certain time.

“I asked one child, age 11, how she was doing and whether she was warm enough sleeping in their car. She said, ‘We’re fine. I’d rather have it cool than hot because it’s miserable in the heat, with mosquitoes and other bugs.’

“She said her dad sleeps behind the steering wheel and she and an eight year old sibling sleep in the passenger seat. Mom, the five-year-old and the baby sleep in the back seat.

“Even so, those four kids are not neglected or abused. They’re clean and neat and the ones of school age are honor students.”

Morgan says that in the school year just past, many of the homeless children were in families whose homes were in foreclosure or because of evictions after the adults lost their jobs.

The Marco Island Area Chamber of Commerce decided to do something to help the local homeless children and their families after they learned about the increasing problem.

“I was very surprised,” says Chamber President Joyce McFarland. “Years ago when we started a school supply drive, pencils, paper, rulers and things, I thought how sad that some kids didn’t even have money for those things, and I knew the teachers were often buying supplies for the needy children.

“But now we found out kids don’t even have a home, a place to do their homework, basic needs we take for granted.”

Good people and businesses here are responding with generosity and creativity to help these children. And it may be just in time, because knowledgeable people here fear the homeless children situation will be worse as school starts Aug. 24. More on that and on the Hope & Help campaign. And on how you can help, next week in the Marco Eagle.

E-mail: don@donfarmer.com and chris@chdriscurle.com.

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