Students Experience Homelessness
Students Spend School Week Homeless for Charity
Spending five days and nights outside in the rain, snow and freezing temperatures can make any person thankful for the privilege of warmth, security and shelter, but for the students who participated in 5 Days for the Homeless, a nation wide event eight Canadian universities took part in, it was a wake up call how homeless youth live day to day.
“You learn each individual thing you can live without. But when you have to be homeless all day, day in day out, that’s what really gets to you,” said Capilano University student, Trevor Page, from Vancouver, British Columbia.
Doing Without
Students slept outside on campus grounds from Sunday Mar. 15 to Friday Mar. 20.
Under the guidelines of 5 Days for the Homeless, participants had to give up their common conveniences, such as cell phones, income and showers and only eat and drink what was donated to them. During the day and night they begged for change to give to their local charities.
In the end the organization totaled almost $150,000 nationally, or 50% more than their targeted goal of $100,000.
Students were also expected to still go to class and withstand the stares and looks from their classmates.
Unexpected Heartlessness
“You never really realize how heartless people are to homeless. We have some people who avoided eye contact with us or avoided us altogether,” said Krissi Bucholtz, another student at Capilano who huddled outside with Page and Connor Welsh for five days in the rain.
Students Explain Experience by Blogging
Blogs were set up on the 5 Days website so participants could describe what each day felt like. Many became very emotional as their nutrition level dropped, their hair became matted and their body sore from sleeping on the concrete ground.
Jaclyn Bell from Guelph University, in Ontario, wrote that the experience caused her to re-think her situation: “I am so lucky to be able to flick a switch when I need light, or adjust the thermostat when I’m hot or cold, or turn the water on when I need to shower, or turn the TV on if I’m bored. All these things I had absolutely no choice in doing today. The lights (sun) went out and I stuck, left there in the dark with nothing to do about it.”
In Saskatoon, participants roughed it during night two and three by sleeping outside in -35C weather with wind chill.
Day Five
By day five some schools received donations well over their expected goal and others were disappointed to obtain only 60% of their target.
Back at Capilano, the $2,577 Bucholtz, Page and Welsh made will be going to the Vancouver Covenant House and the Urban Native Youth Association. Welsh said although they have lived uncomfortably for the past few days, it has been relatively easy compared to reality.
“Obviously it is nothing like actually living out on the streets but it’s kind of like doing it with training wheels on. Getting somewhat of an idea what some people have to go through.”
Welsh understands, like all the others who wrote on their blogs, that while the end has finally come for them, it hasn’t for the youth who live each day in fear, wondering where their next meal will be. Thankfully the money that was raised Friday will help some of those who desperately need it.
Read what Vancouver Covenant House did with the money here.
Students beg for change for the homeless
|
What do you think about this article?
More in Politics & Society
Latest Articles