A cardboard city, a homeless night

(Sentinel photo by Magdalene Biesanz) Lexi Wiltgen, Melissa Kellen, Kayla Hatting, Amanda Roder and Megan Hoffman huddle in the cardboard boxes they spent Sunday night in during Gehlen's homelessness awareness night. More than 60 students stayed on Gehlen's front lawn in boxes and then headed right to class with no breakfast, no shower and no change of clothes. The students fasted from 8:30 p.m. Sunday until lunch on Monday, where they and the entire school were served only rice porridge. [Click to enlarge]

Spending an icy night in a cardboard box might seem like a crazy thing for more than 60 Gehlen Catholic School students to try.

But what they did Sunday night was in honor of the 100 million homeless people worldwide who don't have the choice.

For the second year, Gehlen hosted "Wake up to the homeless -- eat with the poor," an event that allows students to spend nearly 24 hours experiencing living in extreme poverty.

Starting Sunday evening, the front lawn of Gehlen became a shanty town. The students huddled in cardboard boxes where they would spend the night with nothing more than a few layers of clothes and a sleeping bag.

"It was a cold reality last year, and I was thinking people wouldn't want to do it again," said Lisa Sitzmann, Director of Campus Ministries.

Michael Lamoreux, a Gehlen junior, was one of those that did.

"I wanted to see what it was like to be homeless," he said, standing outside boxes littering Gehlen's front lawn.

"It's horrible. You think you know what homelessness is, but the cold gets under your bones. You can't sleep. You can't do anything," he said.

The heavy reality settled in when he realized he wouldn't be able to fall asleep.

"It's a really bad feeling," he said. "And you feel the outside of your blanket, and it's covered in ice."

There was snow on the ground, too, this year, which made for an icier night.

When the students woke up Monday morning, they crawled out of their boxes and headed to class just as they were.

The comforts of their regular life -- a hot shower, a change of clothes, breakfast -- denied.

"They have to try to function at their job, or in this case, at school and try to concentrate after a restless night of sleep," Sitzmann said.

"Today it's is going to be hard to stay awake in class," Lamoreux said.

For lunch they, along with the rest of the students and staff at Gehlen, will eat rice porridge, a simple meal of rice and milk.

The entire event, Sitzmann said, is all about opening people's eyes to the reality of life in poverty.

"We want to make people aware, put their hearts into motion, reaching out with compassion," Sitzmann said.

Lamoreux said the night was rough, but it probably only gave the students a little taste of what poverty is like.

"You can't get the whole feeling of being homeless and hungry," he said.

They also collected canned goods. Each student who donated a canned good received a cup of hot chocolate.

"We wanted to try to stock the shelves at the Christian Needs Center," Sitzmann said. "We heard they were in need and wanted to reach out in that direction."

The fact that the shelves at the Christian Needs Center are being emptied drives home the fact that living in need is a reality for people in Le Mars, not just large cities.

"We wanted people to realize this is right here in our own backyard," Sitzmann said.

Point taken.

"Homelessness is actually real," Lamoreux said. "We gotta do something."