Monroe High’s Interact Club will be participating in the Monroe County Homeless Awareness Week Nov. 5-10. Homeless Awareness Week is a whole week dedicated to those who are homeless. Citizens of Monroe donate and volunteer to help the homeless.

Interact Club will be making signs that display statistics on homelessness in our schools and county. They will also have examples on why people have become homeless. The signs will be hung up in the school halls during Homeless Awareness Week to raise school-wide awareness of the homeless situation in Monroe County and Monroe Public Schools district.

Interact Club Advisor Sue Jones gathered these facts through the MCOP Needs Assessment. She also requested district information from Stephanie McLeod.

Interact Club members are also allowed to ask for donations while in the hall. All money collected will go to the Homeless Assistance Fund.

Senior Interact Club President Noah Boudrie said he hopes Interact club members will gain empathy from Homeless Awareness Week.

“I hope that we will gain empathy for people who are homeless,” Boudrie said. “I think we will come to understand how lucky most of us are.”

On Saturday, Nov. 10, Interact Club will be volunteering at a Salvation Army meal, followed by their annual “Chill Out.”

The chill out is an event Interact Club holds every year. Interact members bundle and sleep in boxes overnight at the high school, without food or technology. This gives them an experience of what it is like to be a homeless person for a night.

Junior Interact Club secretary Rosario Mexicano said she enjoys participating in the Homeless Awareness Week, especially the Chill Out.

“My favorite part of homeless awareness week is participating in the Chill Out because you really get to experience what some people have to go through every day,” Mexicano said.

The main goal of Homeless Awareness Week is to encourage people to give to charities as the need for resources increases due to the colder season approaching.