Twenty-five percent of homeless people are under the age of 18, according to a statistic posted around campus last weekend.
The First Year Service Project held Houseless not Hopeless for the second consecutive year on Friday, October 7 to aid this portion of the population. Originally, the project focused its attention on specific agencies, but last year it evolved into specific issues, like hunger and homelessness.
Shannen Wilson, a sophomore, is in her second year as one of the project’s student coordinators.
“This year being a student coordinator has given me the opportunity to work with my other workers to brainstorms ways to make our events bigger and better,” she said. “We decided to make it a competition to make it enticing for students to come out and participate in all of our events.”
Members of the project split into teams of four to 10 people. Each team was awarded points for various competitions, including the most goods donated, best shelter, number of people who spent the night outside, the peanut butter and jelly relay, and a scavenger hunt.
Teams were allotted one hour to build a stable and decorative shelter. Participants were given basic supplies including cardboard, duct tape, plastic, and markers. One team used sparkled note cards displaying their names, while another attached a tarp roof to a light pole for height. Teams that finished early lent a helping hand to those lagging behind and the top four shelters were awarded points.
Following this was a scavenger hunt, where teams were racing to the quad to absorb as many poverty statistics posted on signs as they could. A few examples of the statistics were, “23 percent of the homeless are US military veterans, ” “30 percent of homeless have experienced domestic violence,” “20 to 50 percent of the homeless suffer from mental illness,” and “In New Jersey one out of three people receiving emergency food is a child.” The final card read “We’re joining 730,000 other people with no place to sleep tonight.”
At the conclusion of the scavenger hunt was the soup line dinner, where students were given cups of noodles and hot chocolate.
Next, teams competed in the peanut butter and jelly tournament. They made at least 100 sandwiches, all of which were packaged for donation to local food banks the following day.
Homeless to Harvard, a movie outlining the true story of Liz Murray, was shown following the sandwich relay. This movie covered many issues plaguing modern society including drug addiction, treatment of disease, dangers in group homes, holes in the education system and overcoming obstacles.
The teams that stayed overnight participated in other activities, such as the making of no-sew blankets to be donated and decorating a team presentation board. They also accepted donations of paper goods and food all night.
The event concluded at 7:30 am. Rachel Conners, a sophomore and another student coordinator of the project, was on the winning team.
“My team came in first and won the grand prize of $100 in declining balance which we got to split between us,” she said. “It’s a unique experience that is important to have because you really gain an appreciation for all the luxuries we have and we learned some important information about homelessness. It’s a great cause and together we all helped to make a difference in helping those who are homeless in the Monmouth County area.”
Susan Damaschke, Coordinator of First Year Student Retention, was satisfied with this year’s turnout and hopes that students gain a better understanding of the purpose behind the event.
“It’s a multipurpose event that I hope will sensitize them to what life without a home would be like,” she said. “Keep in mind, this one-night experience is not exactly like living as a homeless individual, but is more symbolic in that the idea of discomfort is there.”
Wilson said that she experienced this discomfort.
“It was a challenging night to go through, but one that has made me realize how truly blessed I am for all that I have,” she said.
Rachel Conners said she enjoyed the experience for the second straight year.
“It was way warmer since last year’s event was in November and there was a better turnout so it was a lot of fun,” she said.
The First Year Service Project will continue to sponsor events throughout the semester that count towards the SHADOW Program, including Break the Cycle: Be the Change on Thursday, November 3.
PHOTO COURTESY of Kim Grier
