Ripon College Students Sleep in Cardboard Boxes

Last Friday, April 16, Ripon College’s Office of Community Engagement (OCE) hosted the 5^th Annual Shack-A-Thon, a homelessness awareness event located on Memorial Lawn next to the Pickard Commons. The event, held in honor of national Hunger and Homelessness Awareness week, helped deliver a glimpse of what homelessness feels like.  Participants built their shacks using cardboard and duct tape supplied by the OCE to construct their homes for the night.  This year, Shack-A-Thon participants  also had the opportunity to take part in the first ever Speaker’s Corner project, which provided event attendees with a forum to voice how they plan to change the world. 

When asked to describe her vision for the event, organizer and OCE Volunteer Coordinator Sarah Brown described it in this way, “[It was] a scene reminiscent of Depression-era Hooverville spread out on the green space between the Commons and the residence halls.  Students literally had to walk through it on their way to eat and go sleep."  With the shacks in the background, participants and passerby had the opportunity to get leadership training, speak with homelessness representatives, and enjoy each other’s company while learning about the reality of homelessness and hunger in the Ripon area. 

Through events such as Shack-A-Thon, the Ripon College Bonner Leader team and the Office of Community Engagement aim to begin a conversation among members of all economic statuses about poverty in the Ripon area, in order to understand the root causes of poverty and how best to address them here in Ripon.  Thank you to all who joined us on the evening of April 16, 2010 on Memorial Lawn to take part in this conversation.