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Students homeless overnight
Thirty-three homeless persons were seen milling about the courtyard of the Guzzo Family Playground at Selwyn House School throughout the night of November 22.
They spent the night there, huddled in shelters made out of cardboard boxes and whatever materials they could scrounge from around the school.
Some of them were seen on Sherbrooke Street, asking passsersby for money. When the Dans la Rue motor home arrived in the middle of the night, they invited the apparently homeless persons inside for a hot dog and a hot chocolate.
In fact, these were Selwyn House Senior School students taking part in the school’s third annual 24 Hours for the Homeless charity and awareness-raising exercise.
They spent the night outdoors and were not given any food for 24 hours, except what they received from Dans la Rue.
The activity is intended to make young people understand the plight of the homeless, to show them what it feels like to be on the street with nothing to eat and nowhere to go to escape the cold.
“I buy into the belief that there is a lasting value to this [exercise],” said Selwyn House Science Teacher David Grier, who has been organizing this event for three years. “I hope their experience extends to action later in their lives.”
Mr. Grier says the students asked some very thoughtful questions during their visit to the Dans la Rue bus, such as how the DLR staff copes with aggressive or disruptive clients.
Some of the boys walked over to the corner of Sherbrooke and Greene Avenue, where they panhandled to raise money for the cause.
All told, the event raised approximately $2,200 in cash for Dans la Rue, plus donations of socks and canned Chef Boyardee pasta.
Some of the students have been taking part in this activity since it was launched at Selwyn House two years ago. “I felt as though I saw a lot of pride in the eyes of the three-year veterans,” said Mr. Grier.
Students and chaperones taking part were: Andrew Petrecca-Berthelet, William Petrecca-Berthelet, Alex Janson, Robert Diaz, David Grier, Luke Kalaydjian, Angus Scott, Ian Mahutte, Miller Woodward, Luca De Carolis, Joseph Chalhoub, Sebastian Useche, Ewan Nisbet, Jade Boucetta, Sebastien Mouland, Minh Duy Nguyen, Dan Elbling, Charles Lorenzo Veilleux, Theodore Dedes, Alex Tellier, Marcus Da Silva-Rosa, Nicholas Kragaris, Eli Erdstein, Raphael Ferreira, Carl Chahrouri, Andrea Angelini, Sasha Varvarigos, Kieran Hamilton, Eric Zimmermann, Jake Torralbo, Christian Greco and Bassem Bedjaoui.
