Cardboard City event to highlight homelessness issue

PALMER — For an organization with a tagline as lighthearted as “Saving the World Before, During, and Post-Bedtime,” Family Promise Mat-Su is doing some serious business helping homeless people in the Valley.

Executive director of Family Promise Mat-Su and mastermind behind the annual Cardboard City event, Laurie Kari says that the many people who get sponsored to spend the night in a box play a vital role in raising money for those in need.

“It’s our most important fundraiser, and it pays for services direly needed by the community,” Kari said.

On Friday, July 18 at 5 p.m., registered participants will arrive at the Alaska State Fairgrounds in Palmer for the seventh year in a row to get a taste of what it means to be homeless. Each person, or team, will construct a home for the night out of as many cardboard boxes as they wish, including one provided by Family Promise. There will be a contest for the creations with categories such as “Most Creative Use of Duct Tape” and “Most Relevant.” Participants also receive a free T-shirt, free soup and bread for dinner, and opportunities to engage in survival skill workshops and listen to testimonials from previous guests.

According to a publication by the Justice Center through the University of Alaska Anchorage, Alaska ranked tenth in the nation in 2008 in concentration of homeless people, with 0.24 percent of the total population estimated to be homeless.

2011 Wasilla High graduate Julia Cannon was encouraged to participate in the Cardboard City event three years ago by Kari’s daughter, Grace.

“It’s a super easy way to be involved. Why wouldn’t you want to build boxes, listen to music, and eat soup while learning about your community?” Cannon said.

Cannon is the resident musician for the event this year and said she enjoys the special part she has to play.

“Something about having music in the background makes people connect to each other better. It makes you loosen up a lot and I like having that as my role,” she said.

The event concludes at 8 a.m., Saturday, July 19 but giving to Family Promise often continues.

“This event is so accessible, but even if people don’t come or can’t participate, they donate,” Cannon said.

Family Promise is a national interfaith organization based in New Jersey, which began in 1988 under the name National Interfaith Hospitality Network. The organization now has 182 affiliates in 41 states, utilizing more than 160,000 volunteers and 6,000 congregations.

“It’s like the Peace Corps without going away,” Kari said.

Family Promise Mat-Su is a part of the Mat-Su Housing Coalition on Housing and Homelessness, which has helped organize Cardboard City as a whole.

“This is a great event to raise community awareness and support and build some empathy for people who don’t have a bed or even a warm home to go to at the end of the day,” said coalition director Dave Rose.

Rose also said the coalition will soon receive an almost $1 million grant from the Homeless Assistance Program through the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation.

“We get comfortable with what we have and sometimes we forget about those who struggle to get even the basics,” he said.

According to Rose, the Mat-Su Borough School Districts’ Family in Transition program, coordinated by Amy Dorsey, assisted close to 700 students who dealt with issues of homelessness last year.

“The goal of Families in Transition is to promote school stability and academic success for students experiencing homelessness. The McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Improvements Act, which was reauthorized as part of No Child Left Behind in 2002, is our guidance on determining eligibility and providing services,” reads the program’s page on the school district website.

Valley Charities Inc., another homeless assistance partner group, helped more than 500 households last year, and provided more than 1,000 services to those families, said Rose, but homelessness is still a problem for many Valley residents.

For more information, or to register for Cardboard City 2014, visit familypromisematsu.org, or call 357-6160. Open board meetings are held on the fourth Monday of the month at 5 p.m. at the Family Promise office on W. Nelson Avenue, in Wasilla.