Homeward Bound walk raises more than $50,000

Clad in green volunteer shirts, graduate student Megan Janasiewicz and her two friends spent their Sunday afternoon at Third Street Park.\nThey enjoyed the music and the breezy afternoon, but they were there for another reason: to help raise awareness in the fight to prevent homelessness.\nOn Sunday, Bloomington, in sponsorship with IU, came together for the fifth annual Homeward Bound walk, a statewide event that raised money to fight homelessness.\nMore than 400 people marched down the hill to the corner of Third Street Park, 331 S. Washington St., as part of a 5K walk. Many waved flags and signs proclaiming their dedication to fighting homelessness in Monroe County.\nShalom Community Center was one of the agencies that benefitted from Sunday’s event. Executive Director Joel Rekas said homelessness should be identified as a moral issue.\n“We are in the wrong war,” Rekas said. “We need to declare war on homelessness and poverty.”\nA team from Ivy Tech in Bloomington wore green camouflage shirts, with “Combat Poverty” as the slogan.\nBloomington’s walk was one of 10 that occurred throughout the state in April, said Vickie Provine, city program manager with the Department of Housing and Neighborhood Development. Provine co-sponsored the event with Darrell Ann Stone, assistant director of student activities at IU.\nStone said this year more students than ever participated in and planned the walk. Janasiewicz and her friends were just some of the many student volunteers at the event.\nThe walk aimed to raise $70,000 for 13 Bloomington community agencies that work with the homeless, Provine said. Every dollar raised was divided equally between the 13 agencies. \nAt the end of the walk, about $51,000 was raised by the walk’s participants. Stone and Provine said they expect more donations to come in during the upcoming weeks.\nWhile the money raised may not be final, Sunday’s tentative amount nearly surpassed last year’s $60,000, Stone said. Stone and Provine expect the amount to exceed last year’s total.\nElizabeth Blair and Megan Williams, first-year Masters of Business Administration students in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, walked with team United Way. Both are members of the Service Core fellows in SPEA.\n“I participated to raise money and to show support,” Williams said. Before the walk, she said that she did not realize so many children were homeless. Williams learned this from reading one of many fact sheets that were placed throughout the walk.\nWilliams said she felt activities such as the walk would help to raise student awareness for community events.\n“Certain groups are aware and other are not,” Blair said. “It’s the nature of what people care about.”\nJanasiewicz said the walk was beneficial because she thought not many students venture off campus to see what the rest of Bloomington offers. \n“It’s easy to forget the homeless,” Janasiewicz said. “The stereotype, it seems, is that homeless people are crazy and live in cardboard boxes. But so many people are only one paycheck away from being homeless.”