A class will spend the night in cardboard boxes in P2 on Nov. 14 to raise awareness for homelessness.

Charlie Rinehart, special lecturer for the wellness, health promotion and injury prevention program, teaches persuasion/marketing in health. The class is partnering with the Baldwin Center in Pontiac in an event called “Fight the Night.”

The goal of the event is “to raise empathy and awareness for the homeless as well as raise as much funds as possible for the Baldwin Center,” Anne Maitland, wellness, health promotion and injury prevention major and a student in Rinehart’s class, said.

Statistics on the number of homeless people in Michigan are hard to pin down, but Rinehart said that there is a “homeless epidemic” in southeast Michigan. 

“Homelessness has also become a veterans’ issue,” Rinehart said. 

The National Coalition for the Homeless estimated that up to 25 percent of all homeless people are veterans.

The event was originally planned to take place after Veterans Day, which is on Nov. 11.

Money will be raised through donations and used to fix the heating system in the Baldwin Center’s youth center, which hosts after school programs, Maitland said. 

“It has to be a warm environment,” Maitland said of the youth center.

Rinehart said the class hopes to raise $5,000. The class is collecting donations through Crowdrise, a website designed to fundraise. They are increasing awareness through social media, the Baldwin Center’s public relations team and reached out to Jay Towers at Fox 2 News.  

Maitland is also the secretary for the Wellness, Health Promotion and Injury Prevention Student Society at OU. The society helped plan and advertise for the event and will make a donation.

Participants will receive a meal and there will be a time for reflection when electronics are not allowed. Representatives from the Baldwin Center, an OU alumnus and a veteran will speak, Rinehart said. Any student can participate.

The Baldwin Center asked Rinehart to host the event, Rinehart said. However, an OU alumnus suggested that the center host a sleep out.

“The Baldwin Center’s mission is to feed, clothe, educate and empower the men, women and children of the Pontiac community,” according to the center’s website.

Campaigns like this help prepare wellness, health promotion and injury prevention majors for future work in exercise science, health education and nutrition, among others. Maitland said that majors learn how to improve people’s quality of life by working with diets, stress management and exercise in everyday life.

This isn’t OU’s first sleep out this year. The Residents Hall Association hosted a similar event on Sept. 25. 

Rinehart said he hopes for a good turnout and that people better understand what homeless people go through.

“We know that there is a homeless issue in the area,” Rinehart said. He hopes that “as individuals, we are not running to the other side of the road.”