Around eight years ago, the Lasallian High Schools of the Twin Cities decided that they wanted to come together in some way to bring awareness to homelessness. Night to Fight Homelessness is an event where a group of Lasallian High Schools throw an event during the fall for students to participate in, to raise awareness and money for the homeless. The money that is raised is from each student who is interested in participating and the money is then given to homeless shelters and food shelves. Each year the host high school brings in a speaker to speak to the students about their personal experience with homelessness. This year Night to Fight Homelessness was held at Cretin-Derham Hall High School, and they brought in a young man who spoke about his journey to helping the homeless. He had given a speech about how he wanted to become a teacher but was called to go help young teenagers who are on their own. He told a story about a boy he had been working with and how he set up a home for the boy. A few days later the man found out that the young boy took his own life. The man decided to leave that type of work for business, determining it to be too hard for him. Yet, a few years later he was called back again and has been working with homeless shelters ever since. The whole point of Night to Fight Homelessness is to bring awareness to everyone and to show support for those suffering, although the students who are involved cannot fully understand the gravity of a life of homelessness, they are still able to raise money and support them in other ways. 

This year was my first year of participating in Night to Fight Homelessness. I had heard about the event from a few different people and finally decided to participate, I am very happy I did. Night to Fight is a wonderful event to participate in because it is a small group of people with the same goal and hopes of bringing light to such a dark topic. Everyone involved was hopeful for the future and happy to be there. I started with a bus ride to the hosting high school and then the students could set up their tents and boxes that they would spend the night in. We had soup, chili and bread for dinner and then woke up to hot chocolate and donuts. After dinner we listened to a speaker and had a silent moment to write personal prayers and then discuss what we as a student body can do to help bring awareness to homelessness. Before we were let loose, we played many games to get to know one another and warm up before we headed outside. When we finally reached time to go to bed, everyone was quiet and waited until morning. Wake up time was around 5:30 to 6:15 am, we were told to pack up all our belongings before we could head inside to eat breakfast. From there we said a prayer and our goodbyes. I am very grateful that I took the opportunity to be a part of Night to Fight Homelessness, because I got to meet new people and I learned new things about what it is like to be homeless and how hard it can be to find a safe home. I would suggest to anybody interested or even thinking about it, because it is a fun event and all the proceeds go directly to the homeless.