Senior English major Clare Pratt wants to build a castle or a ship out of boxes.
She will participate in Student Housing Association (SHA)’s Boxville, a campus event to raise homelessness awareness and charity for a local shelter.
Pratt said this is her first year building in Boxville, but she was involved the previous two years in running the event.
“I really like the message behind it. It’s a fun night, and it’s a good time for people to hang out and do fun stuff with boxes and get creative and have food,” Pratt said. “But I think the most important part of Boxville has always been reminding people that for a lot of people this isn’t a joke. This is their actual life.”
SHA asks students to bring two nonperishable food items or one article of clothing to participate in the event. Each team is responsible for bringing its own boxes, and SHA will provide the duct tape.
All of the donated goods will go to United Caring Shelters of Evansville (UCS), where the guest speaker for the event is from, said Kaitie Webster, senior English education major and chair for Boxville.
The teams will make box buildings, such as castles, farms or ships, out of cardboard boxes and duct tape.
The box buildings can be decorated with anything except spray paint because the event will take place on the basketball courts, Webster said.
A prize will be given to the group who constructs the most creative building.
“This year we’ll probably just do award certificates … so we can kind of concentrate on the whole giving back, service type thing,” Webster said. “We still want to have an element of reward, you know. It’ll just be like goofy, fun award certificates that we can give out to the groups so they can hang them in their office or wherever.”
SHA will provide soup and hot chocolate, as well.
Boxville usually has six to 10 teams with four to six people per team, but they are hoping to have more people this year because of an increase in advertising through Facebook, Twitter and flyers, Webster said.
The spots for the buildings are first come, first serve, but there will be room to expand into the volleyball court or the patio of the Community Center (C-Store). People do not have to pre-register for the event, Webster said.
If there is bad weather, Boxville will probably be cancelled and moved to another day, Webster said.
In case of a cancellation, SHA will notify students via Facebook and Twitter and will also put a notice in the C-Store. The rescheduled date will be announced after SHA’s meeting, as soon as they make a decision.
For more information on the event, contact Webster at [email protected] or join the Facebook group “SHA Boxville 2012.”
“The event is designed to raise awareness for homelessness,” Webster said. “The idea is to get people out to enjoy time with their friends, de-stress and have fun, but at the same time, while we’re having fun, we also want people to take a moment to reflect on what it means to have a lot and what it means to be able to give back.”
