When Kendall Wiggins first moved to Seattle last year, one of the things she noticed about city living was coming face to face with homeless people on the street on a regular basis.

And while the 2012 Redmond High School (RHS) graduate has never had any personal experience with homelessness, she said she felt empathy for these individuals and would want to speak with everyone.

“You see it everywhere,” Wiggins said about the homelessness.

Seeing so many people in need, the 20-year-old University of Washington Bothell junior decided to do something about it.

Students for Students is a project she is starting to connect high school-aged homeless youth and those in foster care with students at the University of Washington. Wiggins said one of her goals is to show the younger students that people do care about them and what happens to them. Because homelessness and foster care are not openly discussed issues, she said people may not notice when a student is going through this type of situation and may feel isolated as a result.

“It’s not really a visible issue,” she said about homelessness in Redmond. “Even when I was going to school (in Redmond) I had no idea we even had a homeless population.”

Though Wiggins said she did know some people who were in the foster care system.

In addition, she said she hopes the program will show the college students that even as young adults, they can still help make a difference in the world.

Wiggins, who is studying biology and plans to get her teaching certification to be a high school teacher, said she sees Students for Students as an after-school program that would meet about once a week. She wants the program to be a place the students to come together, connect with each other and form a community.

Wiggins said she hopes her program will help get rid of some of the stigmas and stereotypes that come with homelessness.

“These are people with lives and stories,” she said.

Wiggins includes young people in foster care in her program as well because she said it is easy for them to go from one state to the other. For example, she said, once a young person turns 18, they are out of the state system. And if they do not have a place to go once this happens, they can become homeless.

Students for Students is still in its early stages as Wiggins is still working on finding a partnering agency or organization such as RHS or the Old Firehouse Teen Center. This being said, she said she hopes to start holding meetings in November.

“I have this month of October to nail everything down,” she said.

In addition to helping the local homeless youth community, Wiggins said she chose to start Students for Students in Redmond because she feels she did not get as involved in the community while she was in high school as she would have liked. This program is her way of giving back to the place that raised her.