Gehlen students bear cold to get taste of homeless people's lifestyles

By JAMIE MCCLURE, Globe reporter
Nov. 15, 2007

LE MARS - It was a cold, lonely and scary night for many Gehlen students at the cardboard box sleepover that was held on Nov. 7. The sleepover was held to hopefully give them those exact feelings.

After an opening prayer service at 8:30 p.m., students watched a PowerPoint that was prepared by the Christian Leadership Team to give them information about the homeless. Statistics continued the next day as the students learned more facts during lunch as they ate porridge and unleavened bread.

"At the beginning of this school year, Sarah Gengler, a senior at Gehlen High School brought up that November was Homeless Awareness Month," said Lisa Sitzmann, director of campus ministry at Gehlen. "After Sarah brought up the idea that we should eat porridge and unleavened bread, which is a common homeless meal, we wanted to brew up other ideas to go with the silent lunch day."

She said she and the Christian Leadership Team, who are the main coordinators for this event, wanted to do something that would make the students aware of how cold, lonely and scared they might feel if they were one of the homeless people or people from poverty-stricken countries.

"I think for the most part the sleepover went well," said Gengler. "Of course, there were some things that didn't go the way we planned, but we have never done anything like this before."

She also said the Christian Leadership Team put a lot of effort into the event and worked on it during class time. They also had to work on it outside of school creating the PowerPoint.

"The pictures that we ended up using in the PowerPoint were of people that I know from when I went to Honduras last year with the Briar Cliff University students and when I went to Tanzania this summer for three weeks," said Gengler. "It was difficult for me to see the pictures more than it was for other people because I actually knew the people in the photos."

She also said that she hopes the sleepover and the silent lunch were eye openers. She hopes it will help the students realize that some people have to go through what they experienced for one night, every night. "But the difference is, they don't have a choice. Gengler said she wanted to help others see that they can do more to help poverty-stricken countries.

The cardboard box sleepover was held on Memory Lane, which is located outside of the high school gymnasium and St. Joseph Parish. Lisa Niebuhr, the development director at Gehlen, said there were 90 students, parents and staff that stayed overnight in the 38 degree weather.

Sitzmann said she felt the sleepover was outstanding but that the students were very exhausted and tired the next day at school.

"Kids were falling asleep, mostly because it was rough night for a lot of them," said Sitzmann. "It started our as a nice evening, but once 3 a.m. rolled around, it was very cold. It was a mostly quiet night, but you could see the boxes moving and the kids tossing and turning."

She said many of the kids would have to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and warm their hands in the fire-pit. Some even went into St. Joseph Church by early morning and slept on the floor to keep warm. Father Linnan, pastor at St. Mary's Hawarden, who helped with the prayer service, said that sometimes homeless go into the church to keep warm.

"I couldn't believe how much they were struggling with the cold," said Sitzmann. "But still, I was and am very proud of the kids' participation and I am happy with the way everything turned out."

The next day, the students had to go straight to school from the sleepover without breakfast, combs to brush their hair, water to take showers or brush their teeth with and they wore the same set of clothes to school on Thursday that they wore the night before. During lunch, the whole student body ate porridge and unleavened bread during 30 minutes of silence.

"The reason we ate in silence was so the students would think about the fact that an estimated 800 people in the world had died during their lunch hour due to starvation, malnutrition or water born disease," said Niebuhr.

Niebuhr also said that many of the students were speechless on Thursday, the day after the sleepover.

"The students that attended the prayer service came back to the sleepover totally different because they had a better understanding of what people are facing," said Niebuhr. "They said that when they run into someone who doesn't have a warm bed to sleep in that they will be more gracious in giving up their time, their talents and treasures so they won't have to sleep like that anymore."

Sitzmann said the project drove into their hearts, the impact that poverty has on their own communities as well as the world abroad and how they need to be respectful of others regardless of their financial circumstances.

"This is a ways that we can be servants and serve people in our communities, people in Honduras and other parts of the world," said Sitzmann.

Niebuhr said it took a lot of manpower to implement the event and definitely an open mind and caring heart.

"One of the challenges we faced Wednesday night was that someone unexpectedly poured water on several of the boxes and on the blankets that some of the kids were sleeping in," said Sitzmann. "They were not a part of our school and we didn't know where they were from. But we had to make some last minute plans to make sure everything had a dry place to sleep."

Niebuhr said it was very tiring process but if it made a difference in even one heart, it was definitely worth it. She also said the kids wanted to do the event again.

"It's hard for us to all understand how blessed we are until everything is gone...until we are left with a little box, a blanket, our coats and our hats to keep us warm," said Niebuhr. "I also wanted the students to know what it was like to be lonely and homeless so that the next time they see a homeless person, or a new person to school...that they would look at how they would feel if they were that person."

Sitzmann said she wanted the students to have hunger pains in their stomachs to know how it is for the homeless. She said she wanted them to offer themselves and be responsible as a Christian to help the poor and the homeless.

"My silent prayer for that night was that if only for a moment, the participants could feel cold, lonely or scared," said Sitzmann. "That maybe they would come with compassion towards the less fortunate and develop a passion for making a difference in life."