Chelsey participated for her 8th year at the Night on the Street event at Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis. She listened to speakers talk about services for homeless youth as well as young adults and talked about their experiences as homeless youth. And yes she spent the rest of the night sleeping in a box outside to bring awareness to this cause. In Chelsey’s manner, as in years in the past, she crawled into her sleeping bag in her box and slept all night. No complaints!

Over $25,000 was raised for homeless youth of MN shelter and services. Chelsey won 3rd place in fund raising this year, raising $510. As part of the advocacy of this event, each church called their senator and asked that they support the funding bill of $8 million dollars for shelter/services for our homeless youth. Governor Dayton recommended a $5 million in funding for the Homeless Youth in his Supplemental Budget. Last week the House of Representatives recommended $3 million. This calculates out to be 13 cents per night for our unaccompanied homeless youth per night. Not sure what can be done with that!!

Each youth group called their senators from Night on the Street and jointly, leaving a message asking them to support the $8 million. We are asking everyone we know to call or email their senators, who will be voting in about 2 weeks, and ask them to support the $8million funding. You can go to www.gis.leg.mn and click on who represents to find the contact information for the senator that represents where you live.

– Kathy S, eQ Parent