Posted on 03/30/2008 8:37:22 AM PDT by TornadoAlley3
Seek to raise awareness of homelessness
Stang students set up their cardboard-box shelters Saturday for a chilly night under the stars to raise awareness of homelessness.DAVID W. OLIVEIRA/Standard-Times special
DARTMOUTH — It's 6 p.m. on a Saturday night. The temperature is hovering in the 30s, and the wind whips across the unprotected athletic fields at Bishop Stang High School. There are no sporting events going on, save some pickup football and a game that involves throwing washers into a hole. But more than 100 students, dressed in bulky layers, have congregated on the field, amid rows of cardboard boxes covered in tarps.
They are about to start their night in Cardboard Tent City.
They are allowed a box, a tarp, a pillow, a blanket and a sleeping bag. They can't make any trips back to their cars — everything has to be carried in at once.
Junior Kelsey Collette runs through the list of what's not allowed.
"Cell phones, iPods, food. All we're allowed to have is the clothes on our backs."
Adds junior Sean Racine, "It's really humbling from what I've seen so far."
The Homeless Awareness program is in its third year at the Catholic high school. The purpose is to heighten students' awareness of the plight of the homeless and help raise money for Catholic Social Services, which supports homeless shelters in Greater New Bedford and Fall River. Each student is required to raise at least $50 toward the cause, though many exceed that amount, said organizer Sarah Sahm, an English and religion teacher at the school.
It also helps juniors and seniors log community service hours, which are a requirement for graduation. The school helps the students with the requirement, offering 12 to 15 events throughout the school year.
"This is the option for the tough ones," said Jackie McCarthy, a Spanish and French teacher at the school who helped to organize the event.
Ms. Sahm said students and faculty understand that the event, which lasts about 15 hours, can't compare to what homeless people have to face daily. But students can still get something out of the experience.
"It's just more to raise awareness of (homelessness) and to suffer a little bit," she said.
The event also has spiritual and educational components. The night began with Mass at neighboring St. Julie Billiart Church, and students will listen to speakers and have group prayer sessions during the event.
Back on the field, the students are lining up for their food rations for the night: two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, an apple, and two bottles of water. Veterans who attended last year's event said this year's showing is much better, in part because of the weather.
"It was fun. It was cold. Last year we had snow and stuff," said senior Matt Ranzinger. He said the simplicity of the night, without electronics to entertain them, helps them feel grateful for their blessings.
"I think you do appreciate it more," he said.
An announcement was made that $9,343.25 was raised by students and a donation from St. Julie's. It's more than double last year's amount.
Dan Pratt, also a senior, said every part of the experience, from sleeping on the field to raising money, helped him to put himself in the shoes of the homeless.
"We did it as a way to empathize with the people who are homeless and the people who have to ask for money."
So now the schools are literally teaching kids how to become bums.
Stupid-sh*ts!!
Then they would have gotten the full experience.
Anybody can camp out like an Urban outdoors man.
Yep, America is falling apart.
Teaching these little shiites how to get on the public dole takes the cake.
I take my boys camping like this at least once a month. But we either use tents or make shelters from natural materials.
The article never explained how the kids got stang, though. You should always search your campsite for signs of venemous insects and reptiles.
I realize they are only high-schoolers but perhaps they might learn a little more if they attended court hearings for getting some of the schizophrenics committed. Family members of the insane tell about trying to get their sick relatives institutionalized and off the streets, and seeing the homeless-industrial complex magically supply pro-bono lawyers to fight for the rights of the insane to rot in the gutter.
I’d never have graduated from this school. I refuse to be coerced into volunteering for “community work”. Charity either comes from the heart, or isn’t there.
That said, I find the entire concept of “sensitivity training” abhorrent. Christ did tell us to “suffer the children”, but that meant enjoy their presence, not torture them with freezing campouts in some misguided attempt to generate a more charitable mindset.
Why don’t they do something constructive like work in a soup kitchen. Opps! Using the word work would not do it for these skulls full of mush.
Nowhere in the article does it mention the REASON most people are homeless— the libtards insisted that the “dignity” of mentally ill people was being trampled on by keeping them in institutions. So, instead of working to make institutions more than just warehouses, they chose in their infinite wisdom to put them out on the street, and now we are supposed to feel guilty because we don’t take care of them????
Beat me to it, and said it so more eloquently!!
Maybe someone thinks Jesus was engaging in Yoda-speak.
No, the object lesson is to teach them to be good little socialists
Huh?
I presume to make the experience complete, the school 1) issued each student 3 or 4 bottles of cheap liquor, 2) injected them with appropriate amounts of a drug of choice, and 3) made sure that all participants had virtually no knowledge of how to make a living. (Oops, that third one comes standard with a public school.)
All of the homeless I’ve seen recently live in their own tents or break into empty buildings. Apparently living in cardboard boxes went out of style.
Seriously, how stupid can you get? I sleep outdoors in tents all the time - it's called camping. It has absolutely nothing to do with knowing what it's like to be homeless. These spoiled kids are going to be back sleeping with mommy and daddy the next night.
same thing.
I went to Catholic high school in Queens in the 1960’s. We raised some money for a “needy” “family” indentified by the Pastor in St. Monica’s in South Jamaica (Queens), aka SJ. I was a class officer so I was a part of the presentation party. Our class treasurer was a pretty kewl black guy who was a sort of a Johnny Cochran protege.
We found our way to the apartment about 2:00 PM a couple days before Christmas in the Baisley housing project in SJ and knock on the door. After what seemed like a long-long time, a dazed looking adult answered the door. There were several other adults of both sexes (maybe even more than two) splayed across the grungy furniture. We let “Johnny Cochran” be our spokesman. “I ain’t gonna give y’all no b*** s***, merry Christmas!”
We left our gifts, beating a hasty retreat, our Christian duty having been fulfilled.
Now that you pointed that out, I am amazed I failed to see the clarity of your post
I’m shocked they did not set up a mock store front for the “homeless” to go potty on.
My daughter-in-law’s little sister attends this school. This is her first year of not being homeschooled. Can’t wait to find out if she participated and what Mom thinks of it. Actually, she’ll probably approve since she is pretty liberal.
People are homeless for several reasons. The most pathetic are the ones that are mentally unstable or extremely low IQ. They simply cannot deal with the complexities of modern life. Trying to teach them how to deal with life would be like trying to teach me to dunk a basketball. No matter how much time someone spent teaching me how to do it, I do not have the capability of launching myself that high in the air.
Some people are temporarily homeless. These are the easiest to work with, and are usually only without a place to stay for a month or so.
Some are lazy. They're the reason free camp grounds have a maximum length of stay. At Lake Travis in Austin, there used to be camps. My friends and I would go down to swim, and I still remember one guy laying in a hammock with garbage all around him, saying "That chicken sure smells good." There were six or seven of us, all firefighters, so he didn't get too belligerent, but I saw him try to intimidate some college kids. We suggested he'd be happier in a location where he was less likely to get his butt kicked.
Some are homeless because they're on the run from the law. They're the most dangerous.
I wonder if they passed around bottles of wine and used drugs to further make the public aware of the problems facing the homeless.
Cheap, cheap, cheap!
Regards,
GtG
Twist funny thought was!
The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts have been camping out for years. The cardboard boxes might afford more insulation than a flimsy cloth tent. ...looks like another excuse to go camping. The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts do not campout out together as a rule. Girls camping out with boys should get a lot of turnout. It certainly would have in my day!
Uhhh, yeah...geez, did you not know this yet? Come on it’s your fault you know...sarcasm off...
This is a joke. Its only for one night so they really don’t learn anything. They have each other for company and have security. Not ANYTHING like a real homeless person would go through, but it makes them feel better about themselves.
Homeless people mostly fall into 2 groups, bums and mentally ill). Mentally ill can’t really be faulted but the bums can. I know of what I speak as a went through a bum phase myself around 20 years of age, and ended up living in my old car for about 2 weeks. I never sank as low as most bums though.
I guess these students can now claim they “know” what it feels like, but most will be more upset by the loss of the ipods and phones, than by camping out.
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