Last Friday, students gathered on the Mini Bald Spot to make cardboard box houses to raise awareness for homelessness in Minnesota. The event was sponsored by Minnesota Public Interest Research Group (MPIRG).
MPIRG also organized a contest for best cardboard box house. Students who wanted to enter could pay $2 per box to use the old cardboard boxes they'd hauled to the site. The proceeds went to the Northfield Community Action Center.
To Bob Marley on the radio, Carls scattered all over the Mini Bald Spot made their box houses. Some of them were simple, single-box structures painted on the outside and lined with t-shirts on the inside. Others were architectural feats. Dylan Linet's ('09) igloo-shaped box fit two people and had both a rain cover and a closable door. Occasionally, however, the projects ended in disaster. Robert Hildebrandt '09 and Nick Netland '09 attempted to build a ziggurat on the principle that "Height = Might," as they said. Unfortunately, about halfway through the building process it collapsed. They rebuilt it with a more modest arch.
A double-decker creation supported by soda boxes turned out to be a pagoda, complete with the characteristically sloping roofs. A puppy-themed box reminded passers by that pets can be homeless too if their owners lose their homes. Some boxes had intricately painted outsides, or windows made with clear tape. The windows, though, were topped by the castle with the drawbridge.
Becky Canary-King '10 and Brittany Larson '08 served vegetable-bean soup made by Farm house to anybody who wanted it. They were the ones who headed the task force in MPIRG devoted to the cardboard box event. The students at MPIRG were inspired by Joe Johnson, who came to speak at an MPIRG meeting, and who was once homeless. Of the future, Larson says, "We plan to make this an annual event."
There were also fact sheets about homelessness freely available at the event. I learned that there are about 9300 homeless every night in Minnesota. About a third of them are minors, and 52% of them suffer from a serious mental illness. 28% of the homeless work.
Three art majors were commissioned to judge everybody's work. They did not have any specific criteria but rather judged each box overall. Around 7:30 p.m., they took a tour around the box city, stopping to test the pagoda for its structural integrity. It performed admirably by withstanding a vigorous shake. Then they went off by themselves out of earshot to deliberate.
MPIRG did not originally plan the contest to have prizes, but President Oden donated $100 for specifically for that purpose. The organizers split the prize money between first, second, and third prize.
Eventually the judges came back and made their announcements. The first place went to "Home Sweet Home," a cardboard box designed to be a replica of a real house, complete with window boxes with flowers in them. Second place was the puppy box and third went to the pagoda. Fourth place and Honorable Mention went to a box with a peace theme and a box that looked like a castle.
Those who wished to slept out overnight in their box houses. In the morning, they enjoyed an outdoors breakfast.
