Have you ever slept outside in a cardboard box? Have you ever slept in the woods? Or both? Possibly you had an adventure at summer camp. But most of us have never really contemplated the life of hardship that awaits when there is no other place to call home.

In October, Wesley Housing gave children and adults a chance to take a closer look at homelessness. In order to expand the educational impact of the Help the Homeless Walkathon (Fannie Mae Foundation’s 17th Annual), WHDC joined forces with the Arlington and Alexandria Districts of the United Methodist Church. Coordinators from local churches created two new camp experiences to study homelessness—Camp Givehope in Arlington, and Walk A Mile With A Smile at Camp Highroad near Middleburg, Virginia.

Coordinators of Camp Givehope and Walk a Mile With a Smile planned time for discussions and presentations, and thought-provoking “situation stations.” Families at Camp Highroad spent an autumn Saturday walking from station to station—simulations that allowed participants to see subsistence living conditions: “Imagine living in a car”… “Imagine living with your family in this small shelter room”… “Imagine building your home out of cardboard boxes” …
“Imagine feeding a family on one weekly bag of food from the food pantry.”

At Camp Givehope, an overnight experience at Clarendon UMC for families with children ages 6-12, there was an emphasis on feeding a family with limited means. Families experienced dinner and breakfast at a soup kitchen, prepared by the United Methodist Women of Lincolnia UMC. The families worked on exercises such as filling out an application for food stamps and planning a week’s worth of meals from a single bag of groceries. All families participated in a budgeting exercise to manage a household on a monthly income of $893 (pre-tax minimum wage).

Later the group shared experiences around outdoor fire pits. Some of the small groups were facilitated by formerly homeless persons. After these small group discussions, campers retired to their cardboard boxes scattered across the church lawn and parking lot. The next morning everyone was scheduled to “walk for the homeless”—a trek from Clarendon UMC to Central UMC. While waiting for the soup kitchen to reopen for breakfast, children began to gather at tables in the church social hall. Instead of lamenting the lack of bacon, eggs, and pancakes, the kids went straight to work. They all wrote letters to their representatives in Congress, asking for help in ending homelessness and inadequate housing in our affluent suburbs.