The Community Outreach Center is sponsoring Homeless Awareness Week from March 25 to 30. Through activities such as a service fair for the homeless on Monday, March 26, the event encourages students to reflect on homelessness and to volunteer.
Goods and services will be distributed at the Open Door fair to approximately 500 homeless individuals from area shelters. In addition to clothes from collection receptacles around campus, volunteers will provide food, ID services, haircuts and phone calls. Agencies will provide housing, legal and employment information in the Busch Memorial Center. “Open Door is probably the largest one-day outreach program for homeless in the city,” said Bernie Schaefer, director of the Community Outreach Center.
Homeless Awareness Week was developed three years ago to complement Open Door. Josah Driml, Community Outreach Center intern said, “The purpose [of the week] is to make homelessness a reality to the students.”
The week will begin with 10 p.m. mass on Sunday, March 25, when students will be asked to participate in a 24-hour fast. Praise and Worship Holy Hour, Monday, March 26 at 10 p.m. in Notre Dame chapel, will continue discussion and reflection on homelessness.
On Thursday night all students are invited to sleep in the Quad, to provide time for reflection on life without permanent shelter. This activity will differ from previous years in that the reflection will be done in silence until a vigil at 2 a.m.
Emily Mason, coordinator of the vigil, said the reflection will be silent because so many of the homeless are out on their own, alone and afraid. Silence will make the experience more realistic. At the vigil, Mason will invite students to share what they have been thinking during their reflections.
The Community Outreach Center will also lead two trips to area homeless shelters. Students are invited to volunteer at St. Peter and Paul on Tuesday, March 27 and at St. Vincent de Paul on Wednesday, March 28.
Jared Wells, a Homeless Awareness Week coordinator, said, “We’re making it easy to get involved. Most students have never watched a homeless person come into a shelter and seen how a meal can make their day.”
Activities also include a simulation dealing with welfare on March 27 in Reinert Hall. “The simulation gives each person an identity, circumstances and a time limit to show the pressures and conflicts of someone on welfare,” Driml said.
On March 29, in the BMC Marketplace, students can learn more about reasons for suffering around the world through the Options game. Each person will be asked to represent a country. The activity demonstrates the difficulties that individual countries face in paying their debts.
The evening includes a discussion by Adel Varghese, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Economics, on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Homeless Awareness Week will conclude on Friday, March 30 with outdoor Stations of the Cross in the Quad.
