Veterans in Chicago are keeping students safe in one of the most dangerous regions of Chicago by being present as the students walk to school. The Safe Passage Program, founded in 2011 by a non-profit organization called Leave No Veteran Behind (LNVB), has two purposes: to reduce the violence in these areas and to pay off the student debt of veterans.

Leave No Veteran Behind employs these local veterans by paying off their debt and helping them look for jobs. Their job is to look out for the 8,000 students commuting to school everyday.

Since the program began, over 400 veterans have passed through. LNVB has paid back over $150,000 of their student loans through the Retroactive Scholarship Program in exchange for 100-400 hours of community service that the veterans are also paid for. The schedule allows the employees to also have the daytime to search for a job.

"This isn't just volunteerism, but actual work," Eli Williamson, co-founder of Leave No Veteran Behind, told The Huffington Post. "It provides flexibility to go and look for alternate employment."

Though the city of Chicago, known for its high crime-rate, has seen steadily declining murder rates since the peak in the early-1990s, some neighborhoods remain comparatively violent. A crime gap has divided these dangerous neighborhoods, where the murder rates can be 10 times the rest of the city. The students that walk through these neighborhoods everyday to get to school often face dangerous situations, which is where the Safe Passage Program helps.

Credit: NationSwell

"This has visibly decreased youth violence in these areas,"

Williamson told HuffPost.

On any given day, 130 veterans are employed through the program and are dispatched to an area surrounding the corner of 35th street and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in Chicago, an intersection for five high schools that have gang affiliations. The veterans also service other dangerous areas, and their presence aids in providing positive interactions free from violence.