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Inmates in Michigan state prisons have contributed more than $15,000 toward purchasing school uniforms for students across the state.

(File Photo | The Grand Rapids Press)

LANSING -- A Michigan Department of Human Services program that makes the agency's services more directly available to at-risk families is drawing support from an unlikely source: the state's prison population.

The "Pathways to Potential" program is a project that embeds department personnel in selected schools in Detroit, Flint, Pontiac, Saginaw, Kalamazoo, Muskegon and Warren, giving students and their parents easier access to the department's assistance programs.

"We started putting workers in 21 schools in 2012," Sheryl Thompson, the program's statewide coordinator, said Monday. "By the end of the 2012-2013 school year, we were in 124 schools."

The program added the Kalamazoo, Muskegon and Warren schools for the 2013-2014 school year, Thompson said, bringing the number of schools served to 158.

One challenge the program has run into while helping students has been with school uniforms, Thompson said, as 101 of the schools they serve require students to wear uniforms.

"Attendance is a really critical issue," Thompson said. "If kids are not in school, they can't learn."

Thompson said the program began a campaign to raise $10,000 to purchase uniforms for the students they serve, and the fundraising got a boost after she met with Tom Adams, founder of the Chance for Life prison outreach program.

Adams and Thompson spoke with inmates at several state prisons about the Pathways program and the fundraising challenge, and Thompson said donations started coming in from prisoners soon after.

"The inmates basically told me that this is their way to give back to the community," Thompson said.

So far, prisoners have donated more than $15,600, and female inmates at the Huron Valley Correctional Facility have pledged to contribute $20,000 toward the program.

"When donations started coming in form the prisons, I was overwhelmed by their interest in the community," Thompson said. "They don’t make that much per day, but that’s their level of commitment to make sure they’re reaching back."

Thompson said the program has purchased more than 700 uniforms, but still needs more. "We want kids to feel good about themselves, and this was our way to help them dress for success," she said, saying parents had told program workers that their children were sometimes unable to attend school because of a lack of uniforms.

The Pathways to Potential program is still accepting contributions, and donors can contact Thompson directly via email for more information.

Brian Smith is the statewide education and courts reporter for MLive. Email him at bsmith11@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter or Facebook.