Temporary habitat for Habitat

November 19, 2004

Junior Melissa Rollston awakes after taking a short nap between classes on Tuesday in Habitat for Humanity’s new habitat. Students, faculty and staff can support the group by dropping donations in the buckets outside the box.

-Photo by Erin Blasinski

For 134 consecutive hours, 17 Milligan students have been experiencing poverty and homelessness. A six-foot long cardboard box covered with a blue tarp roof located on the edge of the Mary Sword Commons near the science and communications buildings became their habitat.
Milligan’s Habitat for Humanity group began the “Sleep-Out Experience” fundraiser Saturday and will continue through tomorrow. A member of Habitat has occupied the box 24 hours a day.
“It is an event to raise awareness of poverty housing, which is what Habitat devotes it’s time to fix,” stated an email sent to the Milligan community last week.
Senior Adrienne Sutphin, president of Milligan’s chapter of Habitat, said that when the idea first came up to sleep in a cardboard box Habitat members were excited and willing to help. Around campus, however, there was not “a great deal of excitement,” and there were a lot of skeptics.
“During the week before the sleep-out the campus was beginning to get more interested and we received more questions,” Sutphin said. “Currently, there seems to be a great deal of interest and awe.”
Dr. John Paul Abner walked by the box and chatted with junior Christi Bothwell on Wednesday morning.
“The experience of being different is a good experience to have,” said Abner when he talked about the impact of the fundraiser.
Students, faculty and staff were asked to sponsor Habitat members and donate money for the amount of time the person spent in the box. Sutphin estimates that approximately 50 people sponsored Habitat members during the week long experience. Because money is still coming in from sponsors, Sutphin said she expects the fundraiser to bring in about $400.
After spending a night in the box, Sutphin said the experience gave her more compassion for those who have no choice where they sleep at night.
“After spending a freezing night in the box…I was just hit with how real this is, and it isn’t just an idea, it is some people’s lives,” Sutphin said.
Bothwell said that sleeping in a box gives a person an experience of what it is like to be homeless, and as people walk by it makes them more aware of homelessness.
Junior Melissa Rollston, fundraising chair for Milligan’s Habitat, spent a total of 10 hours in the box and said the experience has “been good.”
Rollston said that having the box on campus is making everyone more aware of poverty.
“I think this is opening eyes, and hopefully the hearts, of people in the Milligan community,” said Sutphin. “We just wanted people to see and feel how real poverty is and how close it is to us,” Sutphin said.
Sophomore Trisha Hill found out for herself what 24 hours of sleeping in a box felt like and what it was like to be homeless. From Wednesday at 7 p.m. until Thursday at 7 p.m. Hill found her new habitat both “interesting and thought provoking.”
Most have come away realizing that this isn’t just a camping experience, but it is something that will open your eyes. I just hope that now when they see someone standing on a street corner holding a sign “will work for food” they will think twice before judging.
This is Habitat’s second year as an official campus chapter through Habitat for Humanity International. The group has been on campus for three years but became official last year.