Well we did it. Friday 28th October 2011. 9 members of Darton College staff (known now as the DC9) arrived at the Metrodome at 8.30pm armed with cardboard boxes, lots of layers and an open mind for the experience. In the build-up days before, fear and apprehension had begun to creep up on us due to how “big” this would be for us.
Over 1,000 young people run away each year and end up on the streets. It’s happening now and in Barnsley. We wanted to raise awareness of this issue and also raise funds for a charity called Safe@last that supports young people that find themselves in this position. These are young people that are lonely, cold, frightened and vulnerable.
The DC9 were lucky enough to get prepared for the evening with boxes, layers, sleeping bags and snacks, warm drinks and access to a toilet and still by midnight we were cold, tired and alert for the rats, bats, the police helicopter, sirens and a barn owl that were around watching us. We were a group of friends so looked after each other so we were lucky. We tried to keep warm together. We weren’t alone. And still we were cold and on edge all night.
Regular twitter updates about the experience helped us all to check in on how we were feeling. As the hours went on and the lights turned off the smiles began to disappear, spirits dampened and so did all our belongings as the temperature dropped.
We were receiving good luck texts, tweets and facebook messages from friends, family and colleagues to spur us on to help us through but what do the kids have that do this for real? We still felt cold and fed up.
By the time we got to 3am we were freezing. We felt like limbs would just break off with the cold. We were frozen, wet, miserable, sore, exhausted and ill-tempered. We’ve been listening to a dog not too far away that obviously felt the same and was telling the world. That put pain to any sleep we could have had. As soon as one person moved, the person next to them felt the cold even more. At 5am the street lights came back on and our spirits rose at the prospect of a warm bed. A warm bed that we could go back to and spend all day in if we needed to. We could go home.
10 hours of those conditions was soul-destroying but we all went home and got warm, sleep and food. Because we could.
We’ve raised over £500 so far for Safe@last so for the experience and donations it has been worth losing a night’s sleep and still being cold 4 days later.
