Though rain and high winds forced most of the 40 students
and adults inside during the fifth annual “Homeless for a Night” campout at
Good Shepherd Church in Alexandria Nov. 18, it brought greater awareness to the
problem of homelessness.
Cardboard boxes, tarps, sleeping bags and extra layers of
clothing — only what could fit in a small overnight bag — filled the lawn outside
Good Shepherd. Campers spent time in the afternoon working together to assemble
the makeshift cardboard shelters, sometimes laying plastic underneath the boxes
for protection from the soggy ground and covering boxes with tarps or plastic
bags before going inside for Mass. The campers returned to their shelters at 9
p.m. after an evening full of activities.
Miguel de Angel, director of youth ministry, said the
program was inspired by a desire to give the students an experience of tangible
service. “We needed something experiential to hopefully draw people out,” he
said. “Families and kids have responded.”
The church’s ZIP code — 22309 — has the highest income
disparity in the United States, according to Susan Grunder, parish director of
social ministry. Campers learned this and other facts during activities and
presentations. They learned about the Point-in-Time Count in Fairfax County,
which counts the homeless one night a year. This year, 964 homeless were
counted Jan. 25. Campers learned that a significant portion of the homeless in
Fairfax County are under the age of 18. “Many of the homeless actually have
jobs,” said Grunder. “The activities (got) the campers thinking about how hard
it can be to have a place to live.”
Madeleine Oertel, grants manager at Covenant House
Washington, which helps homeless and exploited youths, gave a presentation to
the campers and parishioners.
As part of the campout, parishioners collected boots and
socks for the Rising Hope United Methodist Church hypothermia shelter in
Alexandria.
Arlington Bishop Michael F. Burbidge celebrated the vigil
Mass and spoke about the World Day of the Poor prior to the campout.
“Every day is a day for the poor and for us to respond in
compassion and love,” he said. “This designation that Pope Francis has given to
us helps us to recognize the poverty that is in our midst. We look at our own
poverty — to be poor in spirit is actually a gift. The poverty of spirit helps
us realize that without God we have nothing.”
Bishop Burbidge blessed the campers at the end of Mass.
“How proud you must be of some of the young people who will
tonight participate in the homeless campout to actually experience what it is
like to be cold, to be homeless, to have chills, knowing that our brothers and
sisters, members of God’s holy family, live that way every day,” said Bishop
Burbidge. “Thank you dear young friends for your beautiful example not only for
trying to experience what it must be like but being committed to doing
something about it.”
Isabella Winarski, a fifth-grader at Woodley Hills
Elementary School in Alexandria, said the experience taught her that other
people go through homelessness for days. “We are doing this for one day,” she
said. “When I see them on the streets I think of this and how I experienced it
and know how it feels, and it was not a good experience.”
Nicholas Zaso, a freshman at Virginia Tech, said the experience
is powerful even if it is only for one night.
“Even if we are not experiencing the whole part of being
homeless, it still makes you think about it more and puts you in the mindset to
want to do something to help,” Zaso said.
The following morning, campers shared their take on the
experience over a pancake breakfast prepared by the Knights of Columbus. “One
thing that came out in the debriefing in the morning was the parallel between
the slow removal of comfort — first being outside, then the rain, then the
wind, then the temperature drop — and the slow stripping of dignity that people
go through as they lose work, or the ability to bathe and wash their clothes to
the point that we walk past them without a glance or a word,” said de Angel.
Derek Rogers, youth minister at Our Lady of Good Counsel
Church in Vienna, brought 14 teens to the campout. “Their parents have blessed
them with incredible housing,” he said. “When the teens are in the cardboard
box, they say, ‘Oh, my gosh, I have so many blessings.’ When they can have that
kind of perspective put in place that is worth it to me.”
Father Thomas P. Ferguson, pastor, said the students come to
understand that when they’re uncomfortable for a night, this is a way of life
for some people. “One of the results of this is some people get more interested
in participating in activities like WorkCamp where they spend a more extended
period of time with people who are poor in our diocese helping them improve the
conditions of their homes.”
De Angel said though the rain and wind forced the teens
inside, “inevitably they all were glad they did when they saw that only soaked
blankets remained on the ground in the morning after their tents were blown to
the other side of the field,” he said. “It is hard to not be grateful for the
comforts of sleeping on the floor with little privacy when the alternative is
that uncomfortable.”
