ROANOKE CITY (WSLS 10)-- There are nearly 300 homeless students in the Roanoke City School District this school year. While it's a drop of about 100 students from this time last year, there's still work to be done.
WSLS10 is a proud sponsor of a pancake breakfast that students  in the Star Council at William Fleming and Patrick Henry High Schools are putting on Saturday to help raise money for their fellow students.
The Roanoke City Schools Star Council is relatively new, started about a year ago by students who wanted to help classmates struggling with homelessness. The "Star" stands for Students Take Action in Roanoke. Over the past year, that action has been selling pies and t-shirts to help raise money for their cause.
The school system has spent more than $4,700 to help families pay a utility bill or rent, payments that have prevented 75 students from becoming part of that homeless number. Now, the efforts continue-- as this weekend's Breakfast with Santa is expected to raise even more money for the cause.
About 50 students from both Roanoke City high schools will be involved, including as many as ten culinary art students, who will be putting the lessons they've learned in class to the test.
"I just feel like everyone needs help," says Laysha Rios, a sophomore. "Sometimes people are too scared to come up and say they need help, because they don't eat at home or something. I just feel like I'm really giving back to the community by doing this."
Students, like Laysha, in the culinary arts program have learned to make everything from chicken broth and chicken noodle soup, to a big batch of more than 150 pies that brought in $1,500 to help the homeless fund last year.
While a local vendor, Sodexo Magic, will be doing all of the cooking-- the culinary students will be helping with prep work, restocking and serving the meals.
"I think that everyone here wants to do it," says Alyssa Sheets, a junior in the program. "We're all volunteering and can actually help them out and want to help them out. It makes the community better because it shows how much we want to help each other and that we're here for each other."
The culinary students are just a small part of the more than 50 students that will be volunteering their time to help on saturday. The student volunteers and member of the Star Council say they're donating their time and hard work to help the 286 students in Roanoke City who go to class, have homework and walk the same halls they do everyday.
"It's just very important to get all of our students off the streets and into homes," says Mark Randolph, a junior on the Star Council. "Hopefully with the Star Council, we can help raise enough money to help every student in Roanoke City get back into homes."
Already nearly $5,000 has been raised for the breakfast. Thanks to Sodexo Magic and other vendors donating all of the food for the breakfast, every dollar raised will go to help these families in need.
The breakfast kicks off at 9 a.m. Saturday morning at William Fleming High School. Pancakes will be served until noon. The cost is $5 for kids under 18, $7 for adults and $20 for a family of four.