On a chilly April night, most college students have the luxury of being able to escape to their dorm rooms, houses or apartments and cuddle up in a blanket away from the cold. The homeless, unfortunately, do not have that option.

The idea behind the Campanile Challenge, an event held by the Catholic Student Community, was to raise awareness about homelessness in the Ames community.

On April 4 and through the morning of April 5, participants in the Campanile Challenge built shelters out of cardboard boxes and slept in them overnight.

Garrett Schieber, coordinator for the event, said that because of the amount of students who take up most of the available housing, homelessness is a serious issue in Ames.

“Hopefully, students gain a new understanding of homelessness and what it’s like to sleep outside, even if it’s just for one night,” Schieber said. “With that understanding, we hope students become motivated to either volunteer or get involved politically.”

The boxes that participants built were judged based on quality and creativity. Cayla Cunningham, sophomore in elementary education, was one of seven members on the winning team.

“I was surprised about how cold it really did get, even when I had warm clothes on. I could never imagine sleeping outside under those conditions without warm clothes,” Cunningham said.

The group said they also had problems figuring out where to go to the bathroom, and how to deal with their hunger that grew throughout the night.

“I think we really take for granted being able to just walk into our kitchen and grab food when we’re hungry,” Cunningham said. “It’s something you don’t really think about until you can no longer do it.”

Around 1:30 a.m., Cunningham and a friend got so cold that they retreated back to their dorm rooms. That alone gave them a new perspective on how hard it would be to sleep outside on a nightly basis, Cunningham said.

Another member of the winning team, Lauren Benzing, freshman in biochemistry, said that waking up in the morning in a cardboard box made homelessness a much more real issue for her.

Benzing also said that this experience still doesn’t help her fathom the psychological stress that weighs on the homeless.

“I know that [afterwards] I can go to my room and lay in my bed. The feeling of not knowing what the future holds and all the uncertainty of being homeless is unimaginable,” Benzing said.

The experience and appreciation doesn’t stop there, though. Students plan to use their new perspective on homelessness to go out and make a difference.

Rose Robuccio, junior in biology, said that she plans to continue to volunteer with the Ames Emergency Residence Project. She reads books to children of families living in transitional housing, but is going to do so now with a whole new passion.

“We need to live in solidarity with the homeless. Understanding what they go through every night, emotionally and physically, is important,” Robuccio said.