GRAND RAPIDS (Michigan) PRESS

November 20, 2009

Schools deliver 60 gift baskets to migrant families

By Erin Albanese | The Grand Rapids Press

WEST OTTAWA -- Rosa Becerra-Silva, the school district's migrant recruiter, plans to give holiday gift baskets to 60 migrant families. Donations of money, turkeys, or nonperishable items and toiletries are needed for the food basket program, in its sixth year.

The families are seasonal workers who live in migrant housing from mid-February to November and have chosen to stay, usually with family members, during the winter. The number of migrant families staying year-round in the district has increased since Becerra-Silva started the program.

"The count keeps going up," she said. "As kids get older, (families) are choosing to stay here until they finish high school and some of them can't afford to move with the economy being the way it is.”