Kudos

TENT TRIBUTE

Local shelter event raises funds and awareness

By Michelle Dellinger

Regularly sleeping inside tents, boxes, and cars is a heartbreaking reality for 1,000 DuPage County residents—a challenge that Bridge Communities works to solve every day. Each fall the Glen Ellyn-based social service agency shines a light on homelessness through its Sleep Out Saturday program—but like everything else in 2020, the annual event has been reimagined.

The pandemic has created millions of job losses, and with that comes food and shelter insecurity. Bridge Communities has never seen such a number of calls to its help line, and continues to place families into apartments as it can. At the same time, employed parents with kids at home due to shelter-in-place situations struggle to find meaningful and safe activities for their families. So Bridge Communities is offering an online SOS toolkit that includes homelessness facts, a sample schedule, cold weather and indoor sleep-out tips, and fundraising messaging.

Funds are raised to support the homeless while others experience what it’s like first-hand to sleep outside. A livestream will connect participants on November 7, but groups and families can register at sleepoutsaturday.org to participate anytime between October 9 and December 5.