CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WAND) - One Winter Night, an event focused on community awareness and fundraising for the issue of homelessness, will have changes to make sure participants can be safe in winter weather.
Participants spend the night in cardboard boxes so they can experience what a homeless person goes through. Due to heavy snowfall, which is expected to be followed at the end of the week by extreme cold temperatures Friday night into Saturday, the Feb. 4 box-dwellers will be moved from sidewalks throughout downtown Champaign to everyone camping together in a parking lot north of the event headquarters (The Venue CU, 51 E. Main St.).
The shift allows easier access to warming and other activities during the night of Feb. 4.
“We want to offer our participants a ‘perspective-changing’ experience but we also want to ensure the safety of all involved. One thing we wanted to do was to get everyone closer to our event headquarters so we can more closely monitor everybody and make sure our participants and volunteers are staying safe” explained Rob Dalhaus, community outreach and development director for C-U at Home. “We utilized this ‘parking lot’ experience concept up last year so we are prepared to pivot and utilize it again this year. We will continue to monitor the weather patterns and inform all parties if further safety measures need to be taken. Please stay tuned for further updates over the next 72 hours and we hope to see everyone on Friday or on our One Winter Night livestream!”
See the PDF document attached to this story for more information.
