Thinking inside the box

Sleeping outside under the stars. Sounds almost romantic in a way, but what if it was not a choice?\nMembers of the Indiana Student Public Interest Group spent a night in Dunn Meadow with nothing but cardboard boxes, a few tattered blankets and the clothes on their backs Wednesday. The purpose of the event, called a "Sleepout," was to raise awareness during this National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week.\n"We want IU students to be aware of INPIRG's mission," said senior Kristin Richards, INPIRG Campaign Coordinator for Hunger and Homelessness Week. "The best thing about sleepout is its visibility."\nFor INPIRG, a campus organization where students "get a chance to face up to society's big problems and take action," the event is just one step in the initiative to fight hunger and homelessness. Interns and volunteers for INPIRG have also sponsored fundraising campus events, wrote letters to congressmen, and worked at local shelters and kitchens.\nAccording to INPIRG's Web site, 3 million people in the United States sleep in cars, under bridges, in shelters and on the streets. \nAnd one person dies from hunger-related causes every 40 seconds.\n"Our goal is to make people more aware of the facts," Richards said. \nCurrently hunger is a daily problem for 27 million Americans, many of whom are homeless. Over 30 percent of homeless people are families, and the average age of a homeless person is nine years-old.\nFrank Hall, Program Director at Mother Hubbard's Cupboard, a non-profit food pantry, spoke to sleepout participants at the night's outset. Hall, an IU graduate residing in Bloomington, works to combat hunger and homelessness locally.\n"Bloomington has a homeless population," Hall said. "Lots of them live out of their cars or vans. Sometimes they can seem almost invisible, but they're there."\nSophomore Mark Seger was surprised when he saw the sleepout participants in Dunn Meadow.\n"I really didn't know what they were doing there," Seger said. "I felt kind of bad walking back to my house when they were sleeping in the cold in those boxes. You just don't see that kind of thing usually"