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On Oct. 24, seven groups from Iowa State hosted their annual Reggie’s Sleepout, an event designed to raise money and awareness for homeless youth in central Iowa.

Participants raised funds by soliciting sponsors, and “slept out” at a local stadium for a night.

Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity was one of the groups participating in the event. The fraternity’s service chair, Joe Nobile, a freshman in speech communication, said the opportunity was suggested by a member of the fraternity who went through the foster care system for several years.

“I think it will really open their eyes to how many homeless people are out there [and] what they’re going through every day,” he said.

Kelsie Pinegar, junior in child, adult and family services, is the compassion and outreach pilot for the Campus Christian Fellowship group on campus.

“I just hope it opens their eyes to the problems we have with homeless youth in Iowa,” she said. “There are around 6,000 homeless people in Polk County, and about half of them are under the age of 18.”

Other recent student sleepouts have been at Tulane University, an all-night fundraiser at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, and another sleepout will take place Oct. 29th at Lehigh University. The University of Nebraska-Omaha event, organized by several of the campuses fraternities and sororities raised $300, 400 pounds of food and 1.000 pounds of clothes.

While the sleepouts garnered media attention around poverty and raised money, some students question how effective the experience is for enlightening participants.  Shannon Moriarty, a graduate student at Tufts University, wrote for Change.org that students should be wary of thinking their sleep out experience is equitable to what homeless persons experience.

“Check yourself: don't think for a second that after participating in this event you have ‘experienced’ homeless. Far from it,” wrote Moriarty.  “Openly acknowledge that one night camping out in a monitored group environment is a completely different experience than losing everything and ending up on the streets,” she continues.

“But I like to believe that, done correctly, these type of events serve an important purpose. All it takes a little bit of careful messaging and a lot of reflection.”

More from the Iowa State Daily at ISU
More from the Brown and White at Lehigh University
More from the Gateway at the University of Omaha-Nebraska
More from the National Student News Service
More from Change.org