More than 100 EHS students slept outdoors in cardboard boxes Tuesday night to gain an understanding of what it is like to be homeless.
The school’s sixth annual Cardboard City event has raised more than $15,000 so far this year, according to event organizer Kellie Warner, an agriculture education teacher in the district. All money raised will go toward helping families in the Edgewood community during the holidays and throughout the year.
“We try to emphasize there is more of a need out there than just at Christmas time,” Warner said.
Several students are repeat participants.
“It’s really an eye-opening experience,” said 16-year-old junior Kelli Gerber, who took part for the third year. “You don’t realize what people really go through. It makes you grateful for everything you have and for everything people do for you.”
Seniors Daniel Zimmerman and Anna Daughetee did it for the fourth time, and they also helped plan this year’s event.
“It truly helped me understand that not everyone has what I have,” Zimmerman, 17, said. “We are trying to challenge the stereotypes of homelessness. It’s not what is on the surface that is the truth.”
Daughetee, 17, agreed.
“It also shows there is homelessness in our own community. It’s not just in the big cities,” she said. “Homeless people are the same as us, but we just don’t realize it because we judge them on the way they look.”
Before the students set up their boxes for the night, they played a game called ‘Reality,’ in which they worked jobs and went to various stations to obtain different items to maintain their home, family and job.
Students learn from the game how quickly a family can fall into homelessness.
“I think this helps students understand everything they have to be thankful for and what life can be like without all these resources,” Warner said. “We also want them to develop some responsibility of being a good neighbor to the community.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2852 or sweaver@coxohio.com.
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