by KYW’s Karin Phillips

A homeless teenager became class valedictorian and will go to college this fall, thanks to a program by the Public Health Management Corporation that works to keep homeless kids in school.

18-year-old Nicholas Shanks now works as a counselor at the Traveler's Aid Society in Philadelphia, the city's largest shelter for families with children. He has a lot of experiences to share. In September 2004, the soft-spoken teen and his mother were forced to move into an emergency shelter. Nicholas still made the honor roll every semester and took advanced college courses:

“It would be distracting during the daytime because at first, we lived in this thing called the Common Room, where you would have multiple families living in there with multiple beds set up.”
 
His valedictory speech to the students at Martin Luther King High School in June was designed:

“To set some kinds of future goals for the seniors, to enlighten them, so because of what I went through, you can make it out of that.”