Meet homeless education advocate Jacob Van der Weil. This November he will become the youngest keynote speaker ever featured at the auunal Texas Homeless Network conference. Considering little Jacob is just barely ten years old, he’s accomplished quite a lot.

Jacob’s passion for the plight of homeless children began when Jacob was only about six years old. He saw a piece on television that featured homeless children. He didn’t believe that they were “real,” because after all, they were just kids like him.

“Homeless people are those guys with signs at the traffic lights asking for money...not kids,” he said.

When his mother Myrtle explained that they were in fact real, he was appalled that in this country we have children living in shelters, abandoned buildings, cars and doorways. He said that these kids must get an education or they will grow up to be homeless adults and will never be able to earn a living.

He turned to his parents and asked, “What are we going to do about this? It has to stop right now!” His mother promised him that day that she would work very hard to help him put a stop to it and help ensure that homeless children have access to the same type of education that he received.

Today, Jacob is a fourth-grader at Wyatt Elementary in Plano, and is quite active in extracurricular activities. Through his involvement with a student groups that collaborate on community service projects, he works on humanitarian efforts such as food drives. Additionally, Jacob placed second in the state scholastic tournament, so he and his mother have begun planning a series of chess tournaments around the state to raise funds for homeless education programs and raise awareness about homelessness by making chess available to schools in inner city schools and shelters. These are impressive feats for any child, but Jacob’s dream turned out to be even bigger.

Jacon and Mertyl sought guidance from the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH), and since then, the mother-son team have been passionately working toward raising public awareness about the educational needs of homeless children. The two began auctioning items on the eBay website and donated their first $7,000 of proceeds to NCH.

They also visited a shelter in Sherman and became even more sympathetic to the plight of homeless children. That was when Jacob wrote the Parent Teachers’ Association and the homeowners’ association in his neighborhood and asked them to help with the programs at University of Texas at Dallas. The homeowners’ association approved the donation of its charity proceeds—about $17,000.

During his speech at the THN conference this November, Jacob hopes to encourage us all to stay motivated. He wants people in Congress to know exactly what the real story is concerning homeless children. He wants adults to share with their children that they are powerful people and can make a difference in the lives of others. He believes that education is key, and that counseling is a must for children who have been abused or neglected so they do not repeat the cycle.

Jacob’s goal was to end homelessness by the new millennium. He missed the mark on that one, but he is a very determined young man, and his mother makes it a policy to keep her promises, so the they’re not likely to give up.