HOPE hosts Box-Out to increase visibility of homelessness

Instead of going to parties, some students will be sleeping outside this Friday night in cardboard boxes in the Pit.

To wrap up Poverty Action Week, the Campus Y committee Homeless Outreach Poverty Eradication is hosting its annual Box-Out event, aiming to raise money to enhance the visibility of homelessness, said Co-chairman Tyler Fitch.

Each participant must raise $30 in order to participate in the event, and registration will not close so anyone can join the event even after it begins, he said.

Box-Out raised about $5,000 last year, and members of HOPE aim to at least match that amount again this year, Fitch said.

“We do not, in any way, intend for this to be a simulation of homelessness,” Fitch said.

“We want people to feel the plight of homelessness and possibly incite them into action.”

There will also be speakers from the National Coalition for the Homeless at the event, and food such as a free Hare Krishna meal will be provided.

Fitch said the group got all of the boxes from local businesses like Best Buy and Home Depot.

The Residence Hall Association, Late Night Carolina and HOPE funded the cost of the event, which was mainly T-shirts and speaker fees, for about $1,000 to $1,200 in total, Fitch said.

Emma Shaw, a new member of the Community Empowerment Fund, said spending a night in the Pit is nothing like being homeless, but the event is about more than just the experience.

“There’s so much emotion and thought and planning that has gone into it,” Shaw said. “It’s a moment of standing together, of trying to do something as a collective to help people.”

Layla Quran, a member of HOPE and an organizer of Poverty Awareness Week, said one of the main goals of HOPE is to create relationships with homeless people.

Quran added that Poverty Awareness Week has been successful so far, and really puts homelessness into context for those who have participated.

“We want to make sure that people know that people don’t plan to be homeless,” she said.

“Sometimes it just happens and it’s out of their control.”

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