On Friday evening, May 20th, a group of teenagers will give up the comforts of home for a night to sleep outside in a box on the front lawn at Trinity Lutheran Church in Havertown, PA.
The Box City is an effort to raise awareness around issues of homelessness, to raise money for the Life Center of Eastern Delaware County, a homeless shelter in Upper Darby and for the youth to be educated on this topic through experiential learning. The shelter is operated by the Community Action Agency of Delaware County, Inc., a member agency of the Community Action Association of Pennsylvania.
Set up of the "city" will take place starting at 4:00 PM. The youth will spend from 4:00 to 6:00 creating their "box home" using large appliance boxes. They will be "homeless" until Saturday morning at 11:00. The event will happen rain or shine. The youth are invited to bring with them one blanket and are asked to keep their electronics at home and not to bring any food with them. At 6:00 PM they and adult participants will have dinner served to them in a "mock soup kitchen". At 7:30 there will be a speaker from the Community Action Agency of Delaware County talking about the problem of homelessness in Delaware County.
Evening snacks will be served from trash cans. The trash cans will have partially filled water bottles and other snacks - mixed in the can with clean trash (crumpled paper, etc.), looking like real garbage. Breakfast in the morning will be completely dependent upon the generosity of family and friends.
The event will give Havertown Youth an opportunity to address issues of hunger and homelessness while having fun and meeting new people and working to raise community awareness.
Boxes are being donated by local appliance stores. Participating youth will donate $6.00 to reserve their box. Their registration fee and permission slip needs to be given to Trinity's Church office by Sunday May 15th. The registration fund will be donated to the Save our Shelter campaign of the Community Action Council. Youth are asked to get people to sponsor them for each hour that they will be homeless.
For more information contact: Ann Shiffer
t.shiffer@comcast.net or 610-853-1484