it’s thursday night and i can’t believe that it has been almost a week since we were homeless for our last night. and i just can’t believe that in less than a week what we did last week already feels like years ago! i am at a lost for words with all of this, but i will say this one and last thing. 5 Days of my life happened and in those 5 Days my life was changed forever.
colin.
Do you remember the times when you would walk into your house, after not being there for a long time, and would say “home sweet home”. I’m really going to appreciate this saying when I get home tonight. This experience has been amazing but I know the last 5 days only skimmed the surface of a much bigger challenge many people face on an everyday basis for much longer periods of time: months, years, an entire lifetime.
I am proud of the awareness we have raised as a community, both regionally and nationally. I want to thank Evan and Sam for being such dedicated and caring people during these past 5 days. I will remember the 5 days I spent with both of you for the rest of my life.
I am very thankful that throughout the week I was fortunate enough to know I would be going home after 5 days. I am very sad for those people who don’t have the same opportunity.
For these reasons, I will continue working towards the eradication of homelessness. Until the problem has disappeared, I will dedicate my time to visit shelters, soup kitchens and do whatever it takes to add some hope in the lives of these people. That is the same hope that got me through the 5 days. I want to provide positive change for the many people that deal with this problem on a daily basis.
Once again, thanks everyone who supported us throughout the week, the planning committee, and the participants. Thanks for the difference you have made, thanks for changing my life.
It has been a few days since the campaign ended and I have had some more time to reflect on the whole experience. Here is what I have come up with. Please bare with me as some of this may be regurgitation of things I have written in the past…
Many of my thoughts have stemmed from one particular issue that I noticed during the 5 days. The more real we tried to make our experience outside as participants, the more support we got from our peers and the community. This added support, in turn, made the experience even less real than what it had been before we tried to be hard on ourselves.
I have been thinking about this phenomenon for a while and I think it comes down to perception. We were the benevolent do-gooders (if you will) trying to make things right in the world. In our society, there is never enough support for these people. They often attain celebrity status for championing change. On a local level, each one of the 5 Days participants became an overnight celebrity, taking interviews almost daily and appearing on the radio, television, and in newspapers. Furthermore, perfect strangers would not even blink when they brought us home cooked meals at night or hot coffee in the morning.
But what about our friends on the streets who have come on hard times and, often by no fault of their own, have nowhere to turn? Why do we paint them with such a harsh brush even though we know so little about them? Too often we use predetermined perceptions to push these people away, leaving them out in the cold without the compassion that so many strangers shared with me in the past week.
Ask yourself why. I still have not been able to answer that question. I cannot account for my past actions (or rather, inaction) and I would be willing to bet that you would have a hard time explaining yourself too. So why keep ignoring the issue? Next time you see a person sitting on the street on your way to Starbucks, pick up an extra hot drink and sandwich. I am not asking you to open your wallet and blindly throw money around when you cannot tell how it will be spent. I am asking you to bring that toque and scarf you never wear to someone who looks cold. I am asking you to save your Roll Up the Rim winners for the fellow downtown that you walk by everyday. It really is that simple.
If we all took the time to do this just once a week, we would have the best fed, best dressed, and ultimately best supported homeless population in the world. We all saw how moved I was by the support of my community; now imagine what kind of impact a large, constant outpouring of support for the homeless would have. Something as easy as one random act of kindness each week could spark a massive positive change in our community.
Even better, connect with your community’s social programs. Volunteer your time to help make a difference in the lives of everyone around you. From youth reading programs, to minor hockey, to homeless shelters, to meals on wheels, there are thousands of people in our community that can use a hand. These social support programs are here to enhance the lives of our fellow citizens and to strengthen our community as a whole. Who knows when you might find yourself in need of these services. It could be something as common as your son or daughter starting to play sports or something as devastating as you losing your job and your home.
Think of it as insurance. You will likely invest more than you will ever get back. Some people may need more or less help than others, that is the nature of the world we live in. But the point is that when you need somebody to lean on, your community will be there with open arms and you cannot put a price on that. When you volunteer your time and effort to help others, you are strengthening that support network that connects us all as members of this community. Furthermore, your actions and the collective action of your community will set a precedent for the way that people will treat each other in the future. This means that every little thing you do to improve the world you live in will have a lasting positive effect on the generations to come.
I know it may be hard to believe, but I basically just defined the word community for you in a rather convoluted manner. No more, no less. Instead of reading that very long rant, you could have looked up the word community in the dictionary and come to the exact same conclusion about the need to become involved and give back. “Sharing, participation, and fellowship,” as per definition 1-f in the American Heritage Dictionary. As citizens of our community, we are bound by the very definition of community to give back.
However, getting involved is a lot harder than you might think. I have realized that it is quite difficult to find an organization that I can really connect with simply because the information about volunteer opportunities is so scattered. As a student who has often wondered how to become involved in the community, I have found it next to impossible to find any listings that could be even remotely described as comprehensive.
I am planning to use all of this positive hype surrounding 5 Days and my position as Vice President of External Relations for the School of Business & Economics Student Council to put together a listing of volunteer opportunities in Waterloo Region for use by ALL students at Laurier. Not only do I want to connect students to these social programs in the region, I want to showcase where our students are at work by tracking our involvement in the community.
Laurier is well known as being one of the more active campuses in Ontario when it comes to student groups and volunteering, but we do not actively encourage and motivate our students to volunteer by recognizing and celebrating our current community outreach volunteers and initiatives.
It is time to change our perspective. It is time to shake things up. I can reach over 3,000 business and economics students with the click of a button and more than 10,000 students with a couple emails. It has never been easier to connect Laurier students with their community.
If ever there was a time for us to step up, if ever there was a time to make a difference in the city that has given us so much, the time is now.
Laurier, let’s show the world what we’re made of… GO HAWKS GO!!!!
We leave our cardboard home with the message that we are going home but the real homeless are not, and a reminder to the community to please continue donating in the future
We are so close to reaching $7,000 that campaigning is done with extra fervour. Here, particpants Mark, Carl and Richie talk to a passerby
Students begin arriving on campus for 8am class, meaning it’s time for us to wake up and gather their spare change
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