The Free Press, Mankato, MN - GAC students feel homeless reality

Wed, Nov 25 2009

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Gustavus Adolphus freshmen Danika Anastasi (left), Jordon Volk (center), and Korbin Wayne warm up this week over a fire burning in a barrel outside Christ Chapel. About 35 students at the St. Peter college slept inside of the chapel or outside in cardboard boxes for several nights this week to raise awareness of the homeless.
John Cross / The Free Press

GAC students feel homeless reality

Homeless exercise misunderstood by some

By Dan Linehan
The Free Press

“All these things that’re really humbling,” Leitch says, “we don’t think about the dignity of other human beings sometimes.”

And as for the jeering students who mocked the sleepout, senior Breanna Draxler has another interpretation of the week.

“It’s a form of protest, a demonstration,” she said.

The students know that they can’t know what it’s like to be homeless; nor will their sleepout by itself have any effect on homelessness.

But it helps them know a little bit more about what it’s like to be homeless — empathy isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition. And Draxler interprets it as a protest of poverty in a wealthy society.

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