By Allison Perrine
This year, 4.2 million children will experience homelessness in the U.S., according to Covenant House.
That’s why the organization – a privately-funded national group that offers shelter, food, care and other services to those experiencing homelessness and runaway youth – still plans to host its annual Sleep Out March 19, despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
However, it will do so virtually through Zoom.
Funds raised will help provide children nationwide with safe shelter and opportunities, the Covenant House website states. Through the years this event has given 4,000 children stable housing, 1,600 unemployment and 720,000 nights of shelter, it continues.
“It’s a cause that is real and it’s in Monmouth County and the pandemic is causing a lot more people to have issues and homelessness. It’s a good organization and a good cause,” said Justin Lotano, a member of the Colts Neck Lions Club who has recruited a few fellow club members to join him in this year’s Sleep Out.
The Lions Club typically hosts a big Kentucky Derby-themed event in May to raise funds for others but due to the pandemic, it will not be held this year. Instead, club members will raise money for the Sleep Out to help youths experiencing homelessness at such a critical time in America. This will also not be Lotano’s first experience with Covenant House as he participated in person in 2019 on the streets of Newark.
“That was an experience,” he said of sleeping in a cardboard box on a “freezing” night in November 2019. “I mean my bones hurt. But for me it was one night. For some people, that’s what they deal with” every day.
Rumson resident and Young Professional Sleep Out chairperson Ann Pennington is also no stranger to the Sleep Out as this will be her ninth year participating.
Despite it being virtual, she is just as excited to partake in this “fulfilling” event.
“Most of all, because of the pandemic still affecting us all, our youth at Covenant House NJ need us more than ever now. Sleeping out is exactly what we need to do right now,” she said. “By sleeping out, you support their education, employment and dreams while raising awareness and vital funds to the youth living at Covenant House and allowing the doors to stay open for all those who have to find their way to us.”
Pennington stressed that participating in the sleep out doesn’t necessarily mean in- dividuals have to sleep outside. It can mean sleeping on the floor, on a porch, in the living room – anywhere aside from a bed.
“We don’t sleep out because we’re pretending to be homeless. We’re sleeping out so that somebody could have a bed by the funds we raise,” she said. “We encourage families to give up your bed for the night so that somebody else has a bed.”
She stressed that homelessness doesn’t necessarily mean sleeping on the streets. It can mean sleeping on a friend’s couch. It can mean staying in different places from one day to the next because there’s no one single place to call home.
The Rumson resident will be participating in her front yard alongside her 9-year- old son, who has participated the past two years, as well as a small group of friends who have been COVID tested. Together they will join the virtual Zoom meeting to hear from organizers of the event and children who are experiencing homelessness firsthand. Her team’s goal is to raise at least $9,000.
“The pandemic has really affected the kids,” she said. “A lot of them lost their jobs. The schools closed down. It’s been a pandemic within a pandemic, really.”
According to Pennington, the pandemic has caused about 100,000 children in New York to go into foster care because those children lost individuals and caretakers to COVID-19.
“We’re seeing a lot of children who had a place they were staying at and it’s no longer available to them because of COVID,” she said. “It’s more than just being homeless, it’s being aware of everything that comes along with it.”
More information about Covenant House and the upcoming Sleep Out event is available on its website, covenanthouse.org.
This article originally appeared in the Feb. 25, 2021 print edition of The Two River Times.
