Life on the Street: Box City of Hope

Have you ever wondered about the homeless people you see on the streets?

What do they do for meals? How do they stay warm in the cold weather? Where do they sleep at night?

MorningStar Mission in Joliet will offer people first-hand experience in living on the streets through its fourth annual Box City of Hope event on Friday, Sept. 16. The event generates funding for the mission’s ministries, but more importantly it raises community awareness about homelessness.

Hundreds of people will gather about 4 p.m. in a field at 749 Houbolt Road in Joliet. They will create a makeshift city of boxes and tents and spend one night sleeping outdoors, no matter how hot or cold or damp the weather might turn.

Entire families, concerned individuals, church organizations, youth groups, activists, business leaders and elected officials are expected to attend this year’s event.

Attendees can participate in a scavenger hunt during which they will learn about homelessness.  Some of the mission’s clients also will talk about their struggles to find shelter. There will be a family-friendly movie that deals with homelessness as a theme. There also will be a contest for the most creatively decorated box home before the lights go out.

Box City of Hope planners work to balance the evening so there is some fun, but not so much that participants lose sight of the difficulties homeless people face every day.

Jeanne Cochrane of Homer Glen has brought the youth group from her church, The Firehouse Chapel in Orland Park, to Box City of Hope for several years. The event is an important learning experience for young people, she said.

“They get to see how people become homeless, and they get the sense that it could easily be someone you know,” Cochrane said. “This makes it very real to them. You don’t choose to be homeless. It’s a whole new perspective.”

Cochrane’s goal is to make the experience authentic for her group. This means sleeping in boxes they collect. No tents. No cots. They can bring warm clothes, blankets and a pillow.

There have been moments of tremendous learning.  Last year, a few boys in Cochrane’s group met an elderly woman who was having trouble situating her box, and they pitched in to help. While they talked, the woman told them she was a grandmother who had been homeless once in her life. She had come to Box City of Hope because she wanted to raise awareness for a good cause.

“It really touched me that these boys got a chance to know this woman personally,” Cochrane said. “You can take mission trips to other countries, and that’s wonderful. But you need to open your eyes and look around you. There are people who need your help right here where you live.”

Youth group member Graham Rodig, 14, a freshman at Lincoln-Way North High School, scavenged along with his friends for empty boxes behind local Target and Best Buy stores last year. They collected dozens of discarded containers and constructed “one giant cardbox house” that took first place in judging last year.

Their house was held up by carefully placed poles. The roof was “iffy.” The walls weren’t so sturdy either, he said.

“It’s really hard to sleep in a cardboard box. It was actually pretty cold, but I really wanted to experience it and to know how it feels,” Rodig said. “It’s really sad to be homeless.”

The experience opened his eyes to homelessness in his community and gave him an appreciation for his many blessings.

“I know that we’re very fortunate to have what we have,” Rodig said. “Homeless people aren’t as fortunate, and we need to help them out when we can.”

Kris Hayden, who attends First Presbyterian Church in Joliet, has participated in Box City of Hope since its inception. She and her husband, Todd Hayden, attend the event annually with their two children, Kory, 13, and Camron, 11.

The family really didn’t know what to expect in the first year, when MorningStar Mission held the event in early October. Kris and Todd pitched a tent while their sons slept nearby in a box. The weather had been extremely mild in the weeks leading up to the first sleepover, but things quickly took a turn for the worse.

“That night, God decided to say, ‘I’ll show you what homeless people really go through,’ and we had a really heavy frost,” she said.

Her husband woke up with ice on his hat, and the ground was covered with white and crunchy ice. MorningStar Mission has since moved the event up several weeks.

The family learned some hard lessons in the cold that first year.

“People really do suffer, and it’s not by choice,” Kris Hayden said. “We were in a tent, and we worried about whether our sons were OK in the box. Then you get to thinking about what it’s like on the streets. If I fall asleep, can somebody just come by and take my kids? It really brings you down to reality.”

To learn more about this year’s Box City of Hope or to register to participate, call MorningStar Mission at 815-722-5780. Visit online and click on BOXCITY to view an informative video that offers a participant’s perspective on the event.