A night out for a cause

The students spent the day volunteering at
organizations that help the homeless.

By DENISE DICK

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — They came armed with cardboard, plastic sheeting, duct tape and layers of clothing — lots of layers of clothing.

More than 100 Youngstown State University students braved the cold and rain Saturday night to mark National Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week. The event also was part of the 10th annual Shantytown, operated by the university’s Leslie H. Cochran University Scholars and Honors Program.

The aim is to bring to light the perils the homeless face on a daily basis.

Freshmen Julia Andrews, Ashlee Dawson and Kimberly Moore, all of Lisbon, picked out a tree near the Cafaro House residence hall to build their sleeping quarters.

“We’ll have our common area in the middle with the sleeping areas on the side,” said Andrews, a broadcast journalism major.

While the students are allowed to duck inside the residence hall to sleep if they get too cold, the three young women said they’re determined to make it through the night in their cardboard box. It’s about the layers of clothing, they said.

“We’re going to tough it out,” Moore, a civil engineering major, insisted.

The students also spent part of the day volunteering at various charities that help homeless people. The Beatitute House, Rescue Mission of the Mahoning Valley, Second Harvest Food Bank and Habitat for Humanity were some of the places where the students volunteered.

The three Lisbon women worked at the food bank, packaging food for distribution.

Saturday evening’s schedule was to include games, pizza and a speaker who would talk about homelessness. At each game, the students will make a small contribution, and all of the money will go to area charities.

The volunteers also collected money, canned goods, clothing and personal-care items to be donated to the agencies.

Seniors David Garthwaite of Berlin Center, an electrical engineering major, and Paul Whorten of Austintown, who’s majoring in computer information systems, selected another plot near the building for their quarters.

Rain soaked the cardboard that Whorten cut for their roof, turning it soggy. They had plastic sheeting on the ground, and their cardboard walls were covered with another sheet of plastic to try to keep their makeshift house dry.

“The idea is to see how the homeless live,” Garthwaite explained.

How will they keep warm and dry in such a soggy structure?

“I guess you should ask how the homeless do it,” he replied.