Homeless For A Day
By Jonathan Copsey/ STAFF
Every year, dozens of North Fulton teenagers become homeless. Thankfully for the kids at St. Brandon’s Church in Cumming, they are only homeless for one night.
The first weekend in March for the past six years, the church has been organizing a “Cardboard Box City” at the Kroger shopping center at the corner of Highway 9 and Windward Parkway in Alpharetta, to teach the kids and the people of North Fulton the plight of the homeless.
The small “city” this year had a population of about 80 and was a ramshackle maze of streets and buildings, with boxes of all sizes in all positions filled with sleeping bags and blankets, some covered with bright blue tarps and duct-taped together. Abuzz with the activity of teenagers talking, lying around, playing games and, like animals, gathering excitedly at the edges when people came by, asking and begging for food and items.
Thankfully, this is all a game and lasts only one night, but for many in the area it can last for years.
“A lot of people don’t realize that there are homeless people right here in Alpharetta and in Cumming,” explained Kat Doyle, the woman behind the event. “We live in an affluent area and these kids are used to living an affluent lifestyle. We wanted them to truly get an idea of what it is like for people who are really in need. Kids here don’t know what need is really about, their need is not having the popular shirt or having the most popular ring tone for their phone.”
As The Beacon has previously reported, homelessness is alive and well in North Fulton and many in the area are either unaware of the problem or choose to ignore it. The cardboard box city is very hard to ignore.
Doyle created the city as a way to help those in need while getting teenagers to truly understand what it is like to live a night without a home.
“I wanted some kind of service project where the kids had to give of themselves and not just go out and buy something,” she explained. “They had to give of themselves. So I said ‘Let’s put that together with collecting things, helping the homeless and fasting.’”
Before the event, the kids collect goods and food to donate to the homeless, with each item donated counting as one point. The kids then use these points like money to buy food during the night in their boxes.
Almost like a game, right? Tell that to the children who went hungry that night because they had not collected enough goods for food. A peanut butter sandwich cost a whopping 50 points. Not enough points? No food for you, just like in real life. The only things allowed to be brought into the city are a box to sleep in and a sleeping bag or blankets. Some kids thought to bring tarps to protect their boxes against rain.
“I thought it was going to be easier than it was,” explained cardboard box veteran Casey Doyle, Kat’s daughter. “It would be like camping but in a box. It’s when the weather changes, though, that’s when you really get it. The first year we did this it snowed. The ground was ice. The second year we had a big thunderstorm and all the boxes were destroyed by the rain. I’m almost at a loss for words for the impact it had on me.”
The event is always held on the first weekend of March, which is when the winter homeless shelters close, turning many homeless onto the streets. As the kids will tell you, just because it is March does not make it warm. This year, the temperature went below freezing. Those kids were certainly not happy campers and were more than happy to return the next morning to their warm beds in their cozy homes.
Milton councilmember Bill Lusk was one of the volunteers to keep watch over the city over night.
“It’s truly what community is all about,” he said. “Helping out those who are less fortunate than us here in the land of plenty is only the right thing to do.”
Those kids will hopefully take with them the life lessons learned by walking in the shoes of the homeless for just one day and that their one night of hunger and cold will resonate with their families and communities.
For more information on the Cardboard Box City project, call Kat Doyle at 678-858-0387 or email at
kat.deepreach@yahoo.com.