Sleeping in the cold is not usually something someone would do by choice- unless you are a member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity, doing this year’s sleep out for the homeless.

The Phi Beta Sigma fraternity slept out in the cold Thursday night to help raise funds for Hurricane Katrina victims and the homeless. Members were out from 7 a.m. Thursday to 7 a.m. Friday.

The members of Phi Beta Sigma met outside in front of the Campanile. They set up boxes and blankets and bundled up for the cold weather.

“We can pretend to be homeless, but we can go to the MU and get something to eat,” said Fabian Awanyai, junior in interdisciplinary studies. “[It] teaches you not to take things for granted.”

The fraternity members were collecting clothes, canned goods and nonperishable food items.

The members of Phi Beta Sigma will continue accepting donations after the sleep out.

“We choose the coldest day to resemble what [the homeless] go through,” Awanyai said.

Many of the members, including Derick Smith, senior in engineering, and Robert Taylor, junior in sociology, said they wanted to be out on the coldest day of the week.

Members of the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity are doing this because of their fraternity’s three principles – brotherhood, scholarship and service. Service is said to be the fraternity’s greatest strength, said Dimar Brown, senior in political science.

Despite the cold, the fraternity brothers have kept a positive outlook.

“It’s so cold, there aren’t going to be any bugs,” Brown said.

A major difference for this year’s sleep out is the fraternity has set up a table for donations. The brothers came up with the idea in the middle of the day and because of that, they have been able to establish a pipeline of donations with the students during the day. They made students aware of the sleep out and that they are accepting donations, and the students sometimes came back with donations.

At time of press, the fraternity had made more money than it did last year.

Taylor estimated that at least $100 was donated.