The Marble Pedestal: Five Days for the Homeless

When I first heard of Five Days for the Homeless, an initiative founded by students from the U of A’s School of Business to raise awareness and donations for Youth Empowerment and Support Services (YESS), the first thing that came to mind were the fond memories of my Disney-esque childhood. During the carefree summers of my childhood, I loved setting up a tent in my backyard and pretending that I was roughing it for a couple hours each day. And that was the image I conjured up in my head when a friend first told me about Five Days for the Homeless, last year.

After sitting down with Oliver Philipp of Five Days for the Homeless, I found that I couldn’t have been more wrong.

“We’re not trying to mimic homelessness. Because as much as we try… We have families back home who are supportive, because the community is supportive. We know that we’ll be done at 5 (p.m.) today but (homeless people) don’t know when they’ll be done or where the next meal might come from.”

The Five Days people were upfront with the fact they’re not trying to mimic homelessness, and that they’re also well aware of misconceptions that some students and myself held for the event. Simply put, the cause is laudable. And despite my initial cynicism, I’ve come to see Five Days as a worthwhile event composed of genuinely involved students that want to give back.

Too often I feel as if I’m more at ease with making snide remarks than I am with holding something up. It’s easy to dive into an invective-fueled diatribe on the neo-fascist leanings of A&W’s breakfast timetable. It isn’t nearly as easy to look for ways to talk about a positive case without sounding like you’ve drank the kool-aid. Yet, in a case like this, I don’t think that drinking the Kool-Aid is such a bad thing.

Without sounding like a shill, YESS is a worthy cause. By being dedicated to becoming a stabilizing influence for youth transitioning into adulthood, YESS drives at one of the many root causes of homelessness. And that’s why YESS and Five Days deserves to be put on a marble pedestal, and why these services deserve U of A student support. Getting students involved when it doesn’t involve beer or free stuff can be a tough sell on this campus. Yet Five Days seems to have found lightning in a bottle here with growing volunteer participation that’s now channelled into giving back to the community.