CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A hundred students gave up their warm beds for cardboard boxes Friday night.
It’s all in an effort to raise awareness for Charlotte’s homeless.
For one night the students were told to find their own shelter.
At the Christ Episcopal Church on Providence Road they made their shanty town.
They’ve collected cardboard boxes and will have to survive the night with only the clothes on their backs.
As the temperature drops they begin to realize the importance of layering.
Several emerge from their boxes to huddle around a small campfire.
“My toes are numb right now,” says Jessica Coates. She’s a student, and one of the people who helped organize the day.
She says it’s important because, “Most of the kids here have never realized how much homelessness affects people.”
If you’re like those kids, read this.
There are only about 2 thousand beds available to homeless families in Charlotte.
But with more than 9 thousand homeless men, women and children, there simply aren’t enough beds to go around.
That means Aimee Norman, the director of Outreach Admission for the Christ Episcopal Church, is getting swamped with more phone calls than ever before.
She says, “The shelters in Charlotte are full. Right now we have 12 homeless ladies from the Salivation Army's overflow sleeping at our church.”
That’s why she thinks this learning exercise is so important for the students.
“I think the first thing, the biggest thing we can do to combat homelessness is education and this is a great way to educate our youth.”
As the sun finally brings some warmth these students are able to throw out the boxes they found… knowing now not everyone is so lucky.
Coates says just sleeping was a challenge, “We still got really cold, I woke up like six times last night.”
Another student, Allie Norman, counts her blessings.
“We’re very lucky to have the fire and to have all the people but they’re basically all alone and they don’t have any heat.” She says, adding, “I was allowed to go in and use the bathroom at our church, but the fact that they’re not able to would be really hard.”
Waking up with a new found appreciation for the homeless, the students took public transportation and joined hundreds of others in Uptown for the ‘Hope for the homeless walk.’
The goal of the march is to make others take notice of the problem, and talk about solutions.
Coates has one in mind. “I look at my pantry and it’s so full. I mean some people don’t have enough and some people do have enough, they have extra and they can just pass it down. I don’t know why it’s so difficult.”
In this economy it’s help more people need this year says Norman. “I’m getting calls (homeless) saying they’ve gone to crisis the lines were too long to way and it’s just worse than it’s ever been.”
