To readers of our blogs - I am too tired tonight to post anything substantial. We raised almost $1000.00 today and I am exhausted.

Rest assured, profound stories will follow. Tomorrow.

I have been thinking alot.

Today, I had 7.5 hours of class, and a wine & cheese at President Summerlee’s house in recognition of faculty members nominated by student senators.  In between all of these commitments, I was our 5 Days site.

I layed half asleep on a bed of cardboard, snow and sleeping bags between 11am and 12pm, and thought about what I’m really doing, what’s really happening.  I started to make a few connections between where I am and what I’m doing this week to what I do every other week of the year.

When I’m not in class I’m at home.  When I eat I sit down at a table in my kitchen.  When at home the people I see most are my family.  Today I realized that we have quickly made our adventure this week our lifestyle, without even knowing it.  The cardboard is our home.  The boxes are our tables.  The corner of our snow patch is our kitchen.  Dian, Julien and Dave are like family.

We might not have a proper bed, or a proper fridge or a proper floor and ceiling - but we’ve created a homely environment, one that is welcoming enough to have hundreds of people generously visit, and one that makes all four of us feel like we have a place to go.  I doubt this is what homeless people truly feel and this experience is helping me to understand that in so many different ways.

A woman brought coffee to the site today.  As with all of the in-kind donors, we took a few minutes to chat and say thank you.  But despite our best efforts to convince her otherwise, this friendly coffee donor insisted it was us who were to be thanked.  She stayed for a few very emotional minutes to explain:

With tears in her eyes, “I know what it’s like to be homeless.  I was kicked out of my house when I was 16 and spent time on the streets.  A shelter was the only thing that got me back on my feet, so what you’re doing means so much to me.  When I was your age there wasn’t anything like this, all your fundraising will help these kids so much, I really think this is incredible.”

The woman - homeless at 16, growing up in a shelter, living her life by the day - didn’t bother to ask who I am or where I’m from.  She didn’t care how much money we’d raised or how many people looked at our website or what the temperature was.  The only thing she saw when she walked up to us was people helping people.  I looked into the eyes of a person who knows what life is like when you have nothing.  And yet she stood there, with a soft smile of gratitude and satisfaction, and selflessly gave us 4 coffees.

For all of what they represented - thank you TM.

After spending the last several hours shovelling snow and reaching into dumpsters to get cardboard, I’m beginning to appreciate the warmth and shelter of a library at 12:00am. Our diet tonight has consisted of Mom Holden’s cookies, bottled water, and a bitterly cold taste of true humility.

In days previous, people told me that this week would change my entire mentality about life. How could I have expected it would begin so soon? When such a big deal was made tonight about Dave and I turning off our PDAs for the week, something occurred to me - turning off my mobile phone really was a monumental affair. But when I got to our 5 Days site and started rolling out our bedding, I realized that for so many people, that little ‘power-off’ button at night is nothing more than a sleeping bag zipper. Although this week will be a challenge for me to carry on with my regular lifestyle, this small revelation tonight makes me wonder if life is truly relative or if I just take certain things for granted.