It’s going to be a cold, cold night for a group of Iowa State students sleeping in cardboard boxes beneath the Campanile.

But the colder, the better is their theory. The students want to know firsthand what it’s like to be homeless, and they want the campus to realize that homelessness is a problem throughout the world, even in Ames.

The service and justice team from St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church and Student Center and the Iowa State chapter of Habitat for Humanity will co-sponsor a “sleep-out” today and Thursday.

Lora Wedge, a senior in women’s studies, is a peer minister at St. Thomas. She came up with the idea.

“I think it’s a way for people to just think about homelessness. There are people that don’t have places to live and sometimes they have to resort to things like boxes that aren’t very warm,” she said. “This reminds students of those people.”

About 30 students will take turns staying in the boxes. Many will even spend the night.

Wedge said the students will also pass out information about how to help the homeless.

Through rain, sleet, snow, ice and loud bells, several said they’ll be there.

“Hopefully it will be clear so we can see the comet,” joked Manuel Martinez-Lavin, a senior in electrical engineering.

Martinez-Lavin will lead the nighttime vigil, with only a cardboard box for his bed and some newspapers for blankets. He will stay from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.

“It’s very easy to blame people for their situation or say they’re lazy,” Lavin said. “In doing this we realize that this is not a pleasant situation at all and [the homeless] are not in their situation on purpose.”

He said the cold weather will make it a difficult night, but if the weather turns to snow or rain, it could be disastrous. “Rain would be horrible, but the plan is to get there and see how to survive. It’s more realistic,” he said.

If the weather gets too severe, the group will take refuge in the Memorial Union.

Wedge said even though the weather is cold, she has asked participants not to bring blankets, but to instead wear layers of clothing.

“I was really hoping it was going to be warm, but I don’t want people to bring big heavy blankets,” she said. “Someone told me newspaper is the warmest. I’ll probably stuff that in my clothes.”

Amy Jo Miller, a freshmen in journalism, said homelessness is a problem in the United States that college students aren’t aware of because they don’t see it everyday.

Miller will be at the site from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. “It’s something I think will bring awareness to this campus about what is happening. There is a problem, and we need to be more aware of it,” she said.