CARDBOARD CAMPOUT: Family Promise seeks $40K for homeless at annual fundraiser

WASILLA — With a $40,000 drop in funding this year, Family Promise Mat-Su is hoping to make up the difference with its popular annual fundraiser to fight homelessness, Cardboard City.

Family Promise Executive Director Laurie Kari said Cardboard City typically raises about $10,000 every summer, challenging participants to gain sponsorships to stay the night in a cardboard box at the Alaska State Fairgrounds. Food, live music and cardboard are provided, but “residents” must build their own shelter.

Since Cardboard City is the organization’s only public fundraiser, the money raised at the event is crucial to the operation and mission of Family Promise. Due to grant requirement changes and an apparent shrinking of individual pocketbooks, Kari said, it is more important than ever that attendance is high and giving is great at Cardboard City this year.

Donors are strongly encouraged to attend the event from 5 p.m. on Friday, July 15 to 8 a.m. Saturday, July 16, but there are other ways to support Cardboard City, Family Promise, and the Mat-Su homeless.

This year, several local businesses have put out little cardboard donation boxes to collect for funds for the event — including NonEssentials in downtown Palmer, where owner Denise Statz said she’s keeping her box out all year.

“We realize that, especially with the economy the way it is now, people find it harder and harder to give large sums of money,” Statz said.

But small change, she said, is no problem for most. She said she and her family also intend to keep a personal coin jar at home for Family Promise.

Statz insisted her contribution wasn’t much compared to the volunteers working to make events like Cardboard City a reality.

“I’m just another person who’s interested in trying to do what I can to ensure families have safe places to live,” Statz said.

Making the problem known

While funding is vital to make real change in the prevention of homelessness, so is awareness, which Family Promise board member Gini King-Taylor said is a clear component of Cardboard City.

“I really enjoy seeing so many people coming in and realizing, ‘yikes! This is what it’s like to sleep in a cardboard box or out in the weather,’” King-Taylor said.

Alaska’s 2015 Point-in-Time count required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) surveyed 1,956 people experiencing homelessness, 57.6 percent of whom were using emergency shelter. Twenty-six percent were in transitional housing, and 16 percent — 317 people — were on the street.

Kari said Family Promise received 53 calls from homeless people in the first quarter of this year, and King-Taylor noted that families with children comprise 33 percent of the Mat-Su Valley’s homeless population, which is increasing each year.

But as that number increases, so do the number of Family Promise “graduates,” some of whom had agreed to share their testimonies at Cardboard City this Friday.

How to participate

Individuals can register for Cardboard City 2016 online at www.familypromisematsu.org/Cardboard_City.html or by filling out the physical pamphlets available at various local businesses and the Family Promise Mat-Su office, 561 W. Nelson Ave. in Wasilla. Entry fee is $50 and includes cardboard, a dinner of soup and bread, breakfast and one white t-shirt with supplies for decorating. Participants should bring their own duct tape and are encouraged to be creative — prizes will be awarded for the most interesting shelters.

On Friday, “residents” may enter the fairgrounds through the Green Gate near the train depot beginning at 5 p.m. At 6 p.m. dinner will be served and guest speakers and Family Promise program graduates will share. Live music by the band No Wake with Pat Wake and family begins at 7 p.m., same-day registration ends at 8 p.m. and “lights out” are at 11 p.m.

For more information, call Family Promise Mat-Su at 357-6160.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.