I would like to thank:

-My fellow homeless buddies, you guys are amazing and I would have not made it through the week without each of us to cheer each other up. ( AND THIS IS INCLUDING ALL OF YOU ACROSS CANADA, YOU ARE ALL AMAZING PEOPLE!)

-The amazing people at the university, and I mean everyone even if you haven’t fed us or donated money, the fact that you supported us doing this event is a donation in itself.

-The community for supporting us and some of the special people who have taken their time to come up and see us or feed us, OR donate to us!

 -Our charity, CPAH, you guys are great helping us get this event going and supporting us!

Lastly, I want to say, let’s not forget about what we are doing this for, for us we were homeless for 5 days but it shoudn’t end here, and we need to just remember that everyone needs a helping hand sometimes and all we have to do is listen and offer our hand or a smile.

This event has changed my perspective on a lot of things, and I hope all of you reading this will consider that all anyone really needs is someone to listen and to care.

With less than 4 hours to go, we are all looking forward to going home and wrapping ourselves in all the things we have missed over the week… but at the same time, it’s kind of sad.  I’ve met so many people, and heared so many great stories… shared so many laughs with my fellow hobo’s in an effort to keep our spirits high… and eaten so much AMAZING donated food… this has been a truely life changing experience, and as difficult as it has been at times, I wouldn’t have traded places with anyone this week.

To my partners in crime, and all those who came out to support us, I leave you with this:

Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
–John Lennon, Imagine

 May you always be surrounded by the kind of love and generosity that we have experienced this week.

well, it’s the last day, and soon we’re gonna part ways and go back to whatever we called normal before… i’m definitely gonna miss it… i’m not going to miss sleeping on the cement, but i am going to miss the amazing laughs and stupid antics we had as we were trying to get to sleep… ‘every sperm is good’, as Liam and Derek would sing.  and our theme song, which through some wild coincidence is also the theme song of a movie, you may have heard of it, Indiana Jones…? haha, this was such a great week, i don’t care what anyone says, as hard as the conditions were, we all experienced something really cool, and as serious as the issue behind this week is… it was by far the best week of the year… thank you UNBC and Prince George for being your most generous and kind selves, for not making us starve (for those ultra cool people who brought us hot breakfast in the morning, u rock my world), for opening your hearts and spirits, and helping us help others… i can’t wait to do this again next year!

Apparently I’ve been spelling the word Morning wrong, like mourning as in the mourning of a person. Well let me justify my case. I was not spelling the actual word wrong but rather using it in reference to the events. You must see, our site, as can be seen in our pictures, is below two ‘lights’. Do not be fooled friends, these are no normal lights, I’m pretty sure that UNBC self proclaiming itself ‘the green university’ as re-routed all of its power from it’s other power friendly lights to these two ‘lights’. These things are freaking SUNS, screw the wind, screw the cold, screw the elements these are the single handedly reason why we cannot sleep. So we MOURN the morning, as it takes us forever to get to sleep because of those damn lights.On a completely different note, we were sitting up last night at around 12:35AM and Robin said hey a shooting star, and I ignored it trying to sleep, and then Caitlin said thats not a shooting star what is that…? By then I looked up and saw that it was not a shooting star, it was a freaking meteor! The thing was huge and close! you could see the rock itself, see the bits rock flying off of it, the flames rolling off of it and the huge cosmic like tail…and strange enough you could hear the bloody thing. I was yelling at Liam to take a picture with his blackberry and he sorta did that looking off into space (no pun intended) look. Fantastic, we watched it go across the sky and over somewhere NE, I wonder where it hit? As for the actual homeless aspect to this, I am tired to no end, grumpy and would like to get out of these smelly clothes. Last night was -10 plus windchill, which isnt as bad as most places participating but it wasn’t comfortable. People have been great though, big shoutout to everyone who brought us food today, in the mourning, in the afternoon and evening…greatly appreciated. Thank you Dominos.I have nothing to contribute and I’m really tired so I’m going to go find something to eat. plus tonight is supposed to be the peak of this ‘meteor shower’ so keep your eyes open western canada.Much love to all of our supporters. Stay Classy. 

So there we were, chilling in our little niche outside the old library doors… our sides still a little sore from the laughs we’d just calmed down from… all of us laying back, about ready to drift off, when out of the dark (or actually, extreme light, thanks to the door lights above us, which are really condensed suns…) came Robin’s voice, sleepily: hey guys, look, a shooting star! I looked up into the night sky and my eyes widened in shock: hey, that’s not a shooting star, I gasped. Suddenly, we all sit up, staring in awe at the massive fiery object that had appeared out of nowhere right in front of us. Liam, Liam! Take a picture, take a picture, I shrieked. But Liam couldn’t take a picture… All Liam could do was stare, chin dusting the concrete we’d been sleeping on. Where’s my camera, where is it, shouts Derek. He and Liam both jump up, not even bothering to get out of their sleeping bags, they madly hopped out across the balcony, trying to photograph the amazing night sky scene. Robin, Rachel, and I all followed, shouting and crowing wildly, thoroughly impressed. The astroid/meteor was a huge flaming boulder, literally roaring as it flew, a long streaking tail flowing behind it, and a much smaller, barely noticeable meteor trailing it. We watched it fly until it was out of sight, heading a firm north, slightly east direction… Wherever it landed, it made one hell of a dent.  Of course after this, we were all so wired, that as soon as Derek mentioned that he really shouldn’t be allowed to perspire, having just caught a whiff of himself, Rachel, Robin, and I collapsed into total hysterics, for a good solid 10 minutes… it was only when I started clutching my sides and crying Ow, Ow, that we started to calm down again.  All in all, best night of the week. Good morning too, I would like to thank the mystery lady (I was hiding in my sleeping bag, and therefore didn’t see who it was) who braved the chill to come bring us a warm breakfast and coffee this morning, Thank you!  Have a crazy cool day everyone, one more sleep, one more day… Rock on Canada!             –Caitlin

Yes, imagine all the people, whahoo-hoo-ah-hoo. John Lennon once wrote that in his piece also entitled “imagine”. I have had the pleasure of Liam playing it over, and over, and over again on this small music box that was given to us from nice lady who brought us food, a tin full of change, and the music box.We were booted out of our table/s today. It was the UNBC career fair, and ironically enough our tables were taken over by the RCMP recruitment officers. After being told that ‘I should’ go for the RCMP, I could travel, I could meet new people I could go to France! I told him that my degree would enable me to ‘meet’ new people, travel the world, and I would at least be able to avoid france. I even explained that one of the anthropology professors does contract work for the PG RCMP and he said ah yes, and went on a tangent about this and that; my only rebuttal to his argument was that I could work for the RCMP in contract work, make money and not have ‘drive police cars’ or deal with ‘B and E’s’ as he put it. It was funny though, having the school full of people, employers, with SO much money that was offered and still they would walk by us (now on the floor of the hallway) and most of them would just stare or make comments. There were a few exceptions and for those few I say thank you very much for the exceptional amount of food and donations, as well as everyone else. Thank you Adam Collusi for coming to visit me at a ridiculous time in the mourning only to find me sleeping, thank you multiple random individuals who donated water and money around our sleeping bags last night/this mourning. And we were able to even reciprocate the generosity of the folks of UNBC and the town by donating any of the extra food we couldn’t finish (besides a few things) to CPAH tonight. They said that there is a great need for food at one of the shelters and that our donations will go right away. I have no really profound statements that I haven’t already said it looks freezing out. So thanks for another great day, we’re at $1,300 now. I’m in the final stages of organizing a wrap up lecture-presentation on UNBC’s 5 days, so if your in PG and want to come out we’ll tentively have the Chair of Anthropology, Michel Bouchard, Dean of Commerce, Bob Ellis, Chair of CPAH and Political Science professor, Alex Michalos from UNBC, as well as the a couple other representatives from CPAH. This will take place ‘tentively’ on Friday, at 5:00PM at UNBC in room 7-152, PLEASE CHECK BACK FOR CONFIRMATION, just in case some goes awry.Stay classy Prince George, it’s gonna be a cold night……mmm estimated -3 my ass. 

Wow!  SOOOOO many people came by today to support us with food and praise, that we ended up eating like kings, with TONS to spare!  The generosity was unbelievable, but all that food sure didn’t promote our “homeless” image. 

Not to worry, in an effort to ease our own personal guilt, and see that the amazing selection of fruits/veggies, granola bars, juices boxes, etc. went to a good place, we called in a little help from a local shelter, and had them take away FIVE grocery bags of food to be delivered to shelters around town first thing in the morning.  She explained to us, that this is in fact the worst season for shelters as far as donations go, as Christmas has passed, and so the idea of being charitable with it; so this food will be greatly appreciated by many people, and for that we have our peers & faculty to thank.

With that in mind, we will be heading into our fourth night outside with precious little food left in our supply, so to those who criticized our lack of “suffering” will enjoy seeing our five tired hungry faces tomorrow morning

With all that said, I can only end with this:  food is wonderful, and yes, we do like to eat, but we five students are not the ones in real need, because in less than 2 days, we get to scrub down, and go back to our pampered lives.  The people who really need your help are the ones who live their lives this way; with no end in sight, no one to stop by and make sure they’re OK, no one making sure they are recieving nutricious food on a regular basis, nothing.  These are the people we are trying to help.  The forgotten souls who sit in the “trenches”, as we all pass by on our daily business, and choose not to aknowledge for whatever reasons.  These are the people that we are making a spectacle of ourselves to draw your attention to.  So, please, the next time you think to buy us a meal from the cafeteria, instead maybe throw that money into our cups, and let us use it to provide a few people down on their luck with the things that they need to make it through.

So far we have raised almost $1,300, which is amazing, and every cent of the money we are collecting will be used by CPAH to purchase items like blankets, toothbrushes, deoderant, and the list goes on… these kits can really make a difference for someone in need, and there are so many who need it. 

Thanks to everyone for all of your support so far - let’s keep fighting the good fight!

–Robin

“Be the change you wish to see”

you wanna know the definition of ironic? today is career day at UNBC, and so many business’ have set up shop in the long glass corridors of the school that students are most likely to traverse repeatedly throughout the day. because of this event, we could no longer keep our area that we had set up and had to move across the corridor to the floor.  sure, we definitely look a lot more homeless now, sitting on the concrete with nothing but cardboard between us and it, but guess who replaced us across the way? none other the Prince George’s very own finest, the RCMP! we’re still laughing, and they’ve come over and chatted a few times… but isn’t that always the way? bums across from police stations downtown…

So after waking up today on day 3, I have come to the conclusion that we have no idea what type of hardships a homeless person would have to live with everyday. We have had so much support from the students, community and everyone doing this campaign, however we are only doing this for 5 days.  Would we recieve this support and help after a month? after a year?

 Waking up this morning was cold, however we had a couple suprises left for us from some gracious people ( who we do not even know.) They left water, cheese and crackers, soup and $5.00! I also saw a squirrel eying up our food, I was very prepared to chase him if he was going to try to go for it, but he didn’t.

Today is a career fair at our school so we are hoping to gain some more exposure from that. We are up on the UNBC website as well! www.unbc.ca

As for how I’m feeling, I am smelly, tired and just not happy in general. Then again though I know I really have NO reason to complain considering I’ll be in my own bed on Friday night, and I know I have amazing friends and family there for me at all times!

Keep on trucking everyone!

So today was interesting enough. I suppose it would have started out sometime early, EARLY this mourning at around 1:00 AM when a gentlemen from the Prince George Citizen came by to donate some supplies to the 5 days cause. His name was Neil, and he was a god. He brought us large amount of a large amount of donuts, 6 extra large coffees and what he called ‘tomorrows paper today’! He was the PG Doc Brown, bring us free copies of the paper where on the front page was an interview with Liam and some alleged interviewer. Besides the brightest light in the world being above us, and the windstorm that tore apart cardboard alley the night was Ok. Today was not a bad day. For only getting 4 or 5 hours of sleep over two nights I’m pretty sleepy. But alas not all is bad, I managed to get back 2 midterms and an assignment today and they cheered me up. People have really started to get into the whole 5 days phenomena around campus. People have been bringing us food, good food, healthy food….mmm….. and we just got waffles…tasty, tasty waffles…I’m really, really tired… so I don’t have that much to contribute on higher level. I have experienced on one level the confusion and disapproval of people around me. It’s really strange, not all people ‘approve’ or think we are doing this homeless experiment right. We are sacrificing our time, our health, our personal lives, our personal hygiene, possibly our grades for a cause thats above just five students outside. I’m a little tired, a little cranky but people who come by our tables/ground station and have the balls to say that we aren’t doing this ‘right’ or we should be down town in the trenches, etc… We aren’t actually ‘homeless’ we are living homeless on campus, it sucks that people can’t even support a good cause when it’s laying right in front of them. I think I can grasp some of it now. I understand some of the resentment homeless individuals may have, because if all I wanted was to eat or drink and I had people walk past me, criticize me or worse physically or verbally abuse me it would be hard to take from day to day.People can be so good, and so bad at the same time. Although we are not experiencing the ‘bad’ we aren’t actually ‘homeless’. Some people have been really good though throughout this week, and to my anthropology, commerce, faculty and all other friends I give you solid high five. And you never know, maybe by the end of this week we can change a couple of those pessismistic people who criticize us, and perhaps that will reflect upon the actual homeless community.Good night, good mourning, and stay classy.