DETROIT (WXYZ) — Students at Detroit's Cass Tech High School are working to fix a major problem they say they see all too often - homelessness. And they're doing something about it.
Watch Carolyn Clifford's video report:
The students are holding a Day of Giving telethon to help raise $50,000 for the homeless community, a huge event driven by empathy and compassion.
A devastating moment outside Cass Technical High School is now inspiring something remarkable. After discovering a man they believed was sleeping had actually died, students are now leading the charge to help Detroit’s homeless - launching a telethon to turn tragedy into change.
Outside Cass Technical High School, students see it every day. People without homes, on benches, in nearby parks.
Hear from the Cass Tech alum and former Miss USA who experienced homelessness while in school:
Sometimes they interact. Sometimes they don’t.
But for junior Kameron Turner, this has never been easy to ignore. She says her concern for the homeless goes all the way back to sixth grade.
Now at Cass Tech, she saves her snacks each day — handing them out after school to people living just outside and in the park nearby.
But one moment last September was different. Kameron noticed a man lying along the side of the building.
“I thought he was sleeping. So I said let me let him rest,” she says.
What she discovered next stayed with her.
“I saw his face, and he wasn’t alive," Turner says. "I didn’t know what to do. It made me feel helpless. Nobody wants to go out like that.”
A heartbreaking moment that changed everything.
“It was kind of heartbreaking. Someone may have died because it was cold or resources weren’t there,” says Melvin Jackson, a 23-year veteran of the Detroit Police Department and now head baseball coach and head of security at Cass.
Now she’s joining forces with classmates, leading a four-hour telethon, asking the community to help them raise $50,000 to support Detroit’s homeless.
This effort is rooted in something much bigger. There’s a long history of homelessness around Cass Tech. For decades, people have gathered in this area, near parks, services, and shelter. And for those working here, it’s something they see up close.
“Sometimes you come across homeless people. A lot of times, they sleep down there closer to the Grand River end,” says Jackson.
And sometimes, those moments turn into something more.
Melvin recalls helping a man sleeping outside the school who refused to go to a shelter but still needed help.
“It was a young man," Jackson says. "I didn’t realize he was that young.”
So he got him a phone, giving him a way to reach someone and a chance to change his situation.
“I looked out, and he was sitting along the fence right over here," Jackson says. "I called for him. He came. I gave him the phone, and you should have saw the smile he had on his face.”
Now, with the telethon underway, students who see homelessness firsthand in their community are stepping up.
Rhianna Robinson, a senior working at Taco Bell, says when there’s extra food, she gives it to people in need with her manager’s approval.
“Sometimes people treat homeless people like they’re not human," Robinson says. "That’s inhumane.”
And the community is responding. People stopping by, dropping off checks. Even staff from Mayor Mary Sheffield’s office are coming to see the students’ mission firsthand.
“Being in here, you understand that slogan 'Cass Tech #1, Second to None," Jackson says. "I come across second-to-none kids every single day.”
But for Kameron, this is about more than one moment. It’s about a future she still believes in.
“Everybody is one paycheck away from being homeless. Just generalizing someone like that isn’t right,” she says.
A day when no one in her city has to live like this.
“Next time you see someone asking for change… what can I do for this person?” Turner says.
A simple question with the power to change everything.
