A determined group of SFU students took to the streets outside the Vancouver Art Gallery on Saturday, March 12 to raise money and awareness for the city’s homeless youth.

Beginning at 9 am, about two dozen students camped out for 24 hours with nothing more than a pillow, a blanket, and the clothes on their backs—and no food other than what was donated to them during their stay.

The result: more than $7,000 and counting raised for No Home, an annual charity awareness campaign first organized in 2009 by the SFU Student Marketing Association (SMA) in collaboration with Covenant House of Vancouver.

“SMA wanted to bring No Home back and to continue tackling the issue of youth homelessness,” says Joanne Leung, a third-year business and psychology student who organized this year’s campaign with fourth-year business and psychology student, David Yuen.

Leung admits her group’s experience was nothing like the ordeal homeless kids face every day on the streets, but she says that wasn’t the point of their event.

“We believe that it’s important for students to realize that many of these homeless youths are a lot like us, just under different and unfortunate circumstances,” says Leung.

She adds, “Both David and I chose to get involved in this project because we saw how big of an impact the 2009 campaign made.  We wanted to help create a change — no matter how big or small — in our community.”

The group collected close to $6,000 in pledges prior to the event, and the current amount is now at more than $7,400. Donations can be made online until March 31 at www.nohome.ca.