Thinking from Inside the Box

Three dozen youth from St. Francis Cabrini Youth Group in Allen Park spent an evening sleeping out in boxes to get a feel for what it would be like to have no other type of shelter. Josh Geschke remarked, “The homeless are braver and stronger than any of us! It really put into perspective the simple necessities of comfort that we take for granted, and are lacked all around us.”

For Kate Crawley, “It was hard sleeping outside in the cold for one night. I can’t imagine doing it for days, weeks, months or even years.”

Melissa Golpe, Marketing Director here at Covenant House, spoke to the group about the difficulties and challenges our kids faced before they found sanctuary here at Covenant House.

For chaperone Pat Tardiff, what he found most disheartening was not the cold, but “the vision of hopelessness as you imagined yourself in this situation. Just the simple task of finding a restroom becomes an enormous everyday challenge. How do you wash, brush your teeth, and clean your clothes, or to even find some work and improve your situation?” Pat spent some time out of work in the past and knows that most of us are only one job loss and a few weeks away from disaster without significant outside support. Our kids lacked any support until they found it here.

Part of the evening’s program was viewing the movie The Human Experience. Mr. Tardiff recalled a scene where a homeless woman told of strangers seeing dogs on the street and bending over backwards to get them out of the cold and give them some food, but would walk right past the people. Our kids know this experience as well.

Josh found one night in a box life-changing. “If anyone asked me if I would do this again, I would say “yes” in a heartbeat. Nothing would please me more than to support the homeless and live like them for a day.”

Mr. Tardiff, who writes a blog, concluded his reflective post with a challenge to us all, “So the next time you see a homeless person, look them straight in the eyes and make a simple yet positive difference in their life, if only for a moment. Because sometimes we need to think from…inside the box.”