On March 22nd, 80 Young Professionals throughout the state of New Jersey came together to support Covenant House New Jersey’s Sleep Out: young Professional Edition, located in Newark NJ. We are so grateful for the 86 participants and 11 teams who came together for a night of solidarity for our kids.
We were happy to welcome Megan O’Brien, Alex Polimeni, Matthew White, Keyasia Dansby and Brittany Baxter into our K Clubs which consisted of the levels of $3,000, $5,000 and $10,000 raised. The top fundraising team was The Cov Love team which was made up of staff raising over $36,000.
During the events, the participants had the opportunity to hear a bit from our youth, who were brave enough to tell their stories that highlighted the adversity they were forced to overcome. Sleepers also had a chance to hear from our staff, talk to the kids one on one, get a tour of our crisis center and really connect with one another.
The event highlight came around 10:00 where staff youth and participants all came together in an activity titled, “Step Up To Courage.” Getting asked a series of personal questions, the objective was to unify everyone as they stepped to the line when a questioned resonated with them. Some of these questions included, “Have you ever felt lonely?” “Do you have tattoos?” “Have you ever been homeless?” What we all realized was, we are all a lot more alike than we think.
From there, youth went in and went to sleep in their beds and Young Professionals, with a box and sleeping bag, set up outside in the parking lot for what was one of the most windy Sleep Outs we’ve seen.
If you have interest in getting more involved as a Young Professional you are invited to contact Kirsten Corley who runs the YP board and is always looking for stand up candidates to get more involved.