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"Elgin Community College and its partners are asking for donations for this year's Project Backpack, which collects school supplies for low-income students who attend Elgin School District U46, Algonquin-based School District 300 or ECC."

"Social Security provides much-needed income for the vast majority of retired Americans. As a social insurance program, Social Security's design returns a higher percentage of average lifetime earnings to low-income earners than to those who had more lucrative careers. Yet some policymakers have called for Social Security to go a step further, providing minimum benefit amounts to qualify low-income recipients."

"Produce vouchers that can be used at the Bayonne Farmers' Market are now available for low-income seniors in Bayonne, city officials announced. Qualified seniors can use the vouchers to purchase New Jersey-grown fresh fruit and vegetables at the Bayonne farmers' market and other approved locations, city spokesman Joe Ryan said."

The report Baby Boomers and Beyond: Facing Hunger After Fifty highlights the circumstances of older adults age 50 and older who receive charitable food assistance through the Feeding America network of food banks.

"State lawmakers have scheduled a public hearing to consider nearly two dozen bills aimed at special education policies in Massachusetts. The bills address funding, transportation, enrollment and reimbursement policies. One of the bills would create a special commission to conduct an investigation into special education as it applies to low-income students. The bill would require the commission to recommend strategies that address potential problems 'from over-identifying low-income students as students with disabilities.'"

"Incoming kindergartners in some Lane County high-poverty schools will get a jump-start on school during the next eight weeks. Young students in the Bethel, Eugene, Springfield, South Lane and Creswell school districts will attend free twice-weekly sessions starting this week to improve their early literacy and social skills with the hope that they will be more likely to succeed in school."

"A $1 million donation to Rowan University will help 50 low-income New Jersey students pay for their college educations, while a high school support program will help them get there. [��_] The donation comes from Robert O. Carr, who cofounded a Princeton-based credit-card processing company and started a scholarship program, Give Something Back Foundation, in 2001 in his native Illinois."

The Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program is headed toward insolvency before the end of 2016. Without congressional action, beneficiaries could see their benefits delayed or cut by nearly 20 percent.

"The first lawsuit involving the state's new education funding formula is a big one, with potential statewide implications. In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, civil rights attorneys charged the Los Angeles Unified School District with shortchanging English learners, low-income children and foster youth by hundreds of millions of dollars. The district disputes the claim."