PC
Patrick Cope
  • Media Studies & Digital Arts
  • Class of 2014
  • Livonia, NY

Patrick Cope of Livonia Organizes Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week at Saint Michael's College

2012 Nov 8

Patrick Cope, son of Monica and Robert Cope of Livonia, is one of the organizers of the annual Hunger and Homelessness Awareness week, Nov. 11-16, at Saint Michael's College. Cope, a senior media studies, journalism and digital arts major, graduated from Honeoye Central School before coming to Saint Michael's located in Burlington, Vermont-one of the top 10 college towns in the country.

With no presumption that they could know what it really means to be homeless, Saint Michael's College students are nevertheless again putting in time in a "shack" to better understand homelessness.

For at least the last decade, Saint Michael's students have erected a crude wooden structure in the middle of the campus green, and have taken shifts to inhabit this 'shack' day and night for a week, this time from Sunday, Nov. 11 to Friday, Nov. 16.

"The purpose," the students wrote, "is not to simulate homelessness-but quite the opposite...the intention of the Shack is to raise awareness and to be a presence reminding the campus community that homeless does exist here in Vermont. An hour in the Shack," they say, "will not show you what it's like to be homeless, but may give you some insight into the strength and perseverance needed when one does not have a place to call home."

The project is part of Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week with daily events designed to educate the campus to the fact that people in our own Vermont community are hungry and homeless. Additional events, coordinated by students in the Edmundite Campus Ministry program, MOVE (Mobilization of Volunteer Efforts) are as follows:

Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week

ALL WEEK

Sit in the "Shack," sponsored by SMC Habitat for Humanity

Sign up to participate in all activities on the MOVE Board

Sunday, November 11

7pm Mass remembering those who experience hunger and homelessness

Chapel of Saint Michael the Archangel

Monday, November 12

5:30 - 8pm Dismas House Phonathon – Hall of Fame Room, Tarrant Center (dinner included)

5:30pm Family Friends – Volunteer at COTS' Main Street Family Shelter

6:30pm Cause for Paws: Collect and bag pet food for the Food Shelf – Eddie's Lounge, Alliot

Tuesday, November 13

5:30 - 8pm Dismas House Phonathon – Hall of Fame Room, Tarrant Center (dinner included)

Wednesday, November 14

3:30pm International Coffee Hour – canned food collection – St. Edmund's Lobby

5pm Knitting Club – knit hats and mittens for area shelters – Eddie's

5pm Baked Love's 24-Hour Fast begins (sign up at the information table in Alliot)

5:30 - 8pm Dismas House Phonathon – Hall of Fame Room, Tarrant Center (dinner included)

5:30pm Family Friends – Volunteer at COTS' Main Street Family Shelter

Thursday, November 15

5:30pm Baked Love's Break-the-Fast Dinner with guest speaker, Bob Mariano, volunteer coordinator, Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf– Eddie's

8:30pm Closing Vigil – outside the Shack

Other events throughout the week include an Informational Table to sign up for the 24-hour Fast, learn about hunger and homelessness in Vermont and theworld, and sign a letter to advocate for policy change; hunger statistics posted throughout campus; canned food collection in Sodexo.

Learn What Matters at Saint Michael's College, The Edmundite Catholic liberal arts college, www.smcvt.edu . Saint Michael's provides education with a social conscience, producing graduates with the intellectual tools to lead successful, purposeful lives that will contribute to peace and justice in our world. Founded in 1904 by the Society of St. Edmund and headed by President John J. Neuhauser, Saint Michael's College is located three miles from Burlington, Vermont, one of America's top college towns. Identified by the Princeton Review, 2013 as one of the nation's Best 377 Colleges, and included in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2013, Saint Michael's has 1,900 undergraduate students and 500 graduate students. Saint Michael's students and professors have received Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, Pickering, Guggenheim, Fulbright, and other grants. The college is one of the nation's top-100, Best Liberal Arts Colleges as listed in the 2013 U.S. News & World Report rankings.