No shelter, no showers, no money and little food.
A small group of Wilfrid Laurier University students will be looking to stay warm and overcome hunger all in an effort to help those less fortunate.
Participant Laiya Carayannopoulos says "I've never had to sleep outside. I've never had to go hungry, so this'll definitely give me a fresh perspective on what other people have to live with every day of their lives."
Normally their focus would be on exams, but for the next five days they'll have nothing but the clothes on their back and sleeping bags. They will have to rely on the food and donations of other students in order to survive.
"Although I'm going to be sleeping outside for five days, I realize I'm going to be going back to my house after these five days are done." says participant Richard Reid
Five Days for The Homeless is a national campaign to raise awareness. Money collected will go to two local youth shelters, Kitchener-Waterloo Reaching Our Outdoor Friends (ROOF) and Argus Residence for Young People.
Organizer Kait Drury is looking to raise 15-thousand dollars.
"There are students at Laurier right now that don't have a home to go home to, and don't have a bed to sleep in at night. And that's something that I think we need to recognize, and we can't ignore." says Drury
As for the five taking part they hope their fellow students take notice and join the movement.
"If I can get other people to continue helping, we can still make promotional videos, we can still do all this stuff to kind of keep the awareness going, I think that's really important." says participant Cameron Moorhead
Last year five days for the homeless raised more than 14 thousand dollars at Laurier.
www.5days.ca
