SleepIn

Sleepin for SleepOut 2021 may be over, but the event lives on!

Feel free to watch or re-watch our program by clicking here, and sharing the below resources with your family, friends or groups. SleepIn for SleepOut is an educational opportunity as well as a way to raise awareness and much needed funding for those who are homeless in our community.

Information and activities to share with your family or group

The following are materials to help members of your family or group learn more about homelessness and how your participation in SleepIn for SleepOut is helping The Lord’s Place break the cycle of homelessness in our community. The discussion points, activities and resources can be adjusted according to age. Use what you feel comfortable sharing with your family.

To register for SleepIn for SleepOut click on http://sleepouttlp.com/ and go to “Register Individual, Create or Join a team here!” button. Fill out the information and when you get to the step that asks you how you will be participating, click “I will be sleeping in!”
To donate, click here.
Post a photo or video on Instagram, FaceBook or Twitter of your SleepIn for SleepOut from your home or backyard with the hashtags #TLPSleepInforSleepOut #TLPSleepInforSleepOut #TLPSleepIn and challenge your friends, families, co-workers and neighbors to do the same. Don’t forget to tag The Lord’s Place. This way, everyone can participate!

Information and activities to share with your family or group

Following are materials to help members of your family or group learn more about homelessness and how your participation in SleepIn for SleepOut is helping The Lord’s Place break the cycle of homelessness in our community. The discussion points, activities and resources can be adjusted according to age. Use what you feel comfortable sharing with your family.

Discussion Points for those with children under 7

It is important to care about those in our family
It is important to care about others in our community
Discuss the importance of families being together and showing that you care about each other
Others live in different circumstances than our family lives.
It is important to respect people who are like us as well as people who are different than us.
All people need to feel love and need a place to live and food to eat.

Discussion Points to add if you have children ages 7-12

Our family is fortunate to have a home where we can live in comfort
Not all families have a home to live in
All families need a place to call their own
Why is it important to have a place to call home?
How would you feel if you didn’t have a home?
By SleepingIn for SleepOut tonight, your family is helping The Lord’s Place help other families who don’t have a home.

Discussion Points to add for those over 12

It is important to respect people who are like us as well as people who are different than us.
All people deserve a place to live and food to eat.
There are many reasons that people become homeless but all deserve the opportunity to live in a place that is safe and comfortable.
Today there are more than 30 former program participants employed by The Lord’s Place, leading productive lives.
The Lord’s Place is looking for more employers who will partner with our agency to employ our formerly homeless men and women.

Activities for Adults and Families

Build a “home” for the night such as a tent made out of blankets or house made out of cardboard boxes. Decide when and how you are going to SleepIn for SleepOut: on sleeping bags in your home, outside in a tent or in your car.
The night of your SleepIn, set time aside away from cellphones, to focus on the issue of homelessness and your role in addressing the problem. When you sit down for dinner, discuss what it must feel like to go to sleep without any food.
Read together as a family one or more of the recommended books and discuss.
Sleep together as a family in your “different” home for the night.
Show us what you are doing! Post photos of your SleepIn for SleepOut on social media #TLPSleepInforSleepOut, #TLPSleepIn, #TLPSleepOut, #TLPSleepOutWithUs, and make a donation on our site, http://sleepouttlp.com/ (Donate) and shout out to your friends to do their own SleepIn event.
Watch one or more of the movies together and discuss how it made you feel and how you think not having a home affects children and their parents. Does being homeless make it difficult to go to school and get your homework and projects completed? Do children who are homeless have access to the same technology and play and learning opportunities that you have? How might this affect their outlook on life and how they see their future.
Review the discussion points provided and discuss how you feel about the provided facts and figures.
Individually or as a family, give some thought to what you can do to help people in our community who are experiencing homelessness. Go to our website – thelordsplace.org and view the programs and services we offer and suggestions for how you can make a difference.

Resources

Books

“The Berenstein Bears Help the Homeless” by Jan Berenstain 2012. Ages 4-7 years. The spooky, old house on Spook Hill would make the perfect homeless shelter for Bear Country. The Good Deed Scouts and Old Tom better get busy with repairs!

“Fly Away Home” by Eve Bunting 1991. Grades PreK–3. A young boy talks about his and his father’s lives living in an airport and has hope for himself when he sees a trapped bird find freedom.

“The Lady in the Box” by Ann McGovern 1997. Grades K–4. When two siblings discover a homeless woman living in their neighborhood, they discover how easy it can be to make a difference in someone’s life.

Almost Home by Joan Bauer. 2012. Sixth-grader Sugar and her mother lose their beloved house and experience the harsh world of homelessness.

A Shelter in our Car. 2013. Zettie and her Mama left their warm and comfortable home in Jamaica for an uncertain life in the United Sates. With Papa gone, Mama can’t find a steady job that will sustain them and so they are forced to live in their car. A hopeful ending as she and her mother meet all challenges.

Uncle Willie and the Soup Kitchen. (1997) A gentle and age-appropriate introduction to two key issues of our time—hunger and homelessness—from a kid’s point of view. This empathy-building book is good for sharing at home or in a classroom.

The King of Dragons by Carol Fenner. 1998. Having lost access to the old railroad station where they had been staying, homeless Ian and his father move into an unused city courthouse and try to avoid being discovered by the authorities.

Tinfoil Sky by Cyndi Sand-Eveland. 2012. When Mel and her mother leave the home of an abusive man, Mel allows herself to dream of a secure place to live, but that dream soon falls apart when the grandmother that they looked to for shelter is not as expected.

Shelter by Beth Cooley. 2006. Following her father’s death and the discovery of his debts, high school sophomore Lucy moves with her mother and brother from their upper-middle-class neighborhood into a homeless shelter where she tries to come to terms with her new life.

Non-Fiction

A kids’ guide to hunger and homelessness: how to take action by Cathryn Berger Kaye.

No Place to Be: Voices of Homeless Children by Judith Berck. 1992. The stories and poems of actual homeless children depict the reality of homelessness in America, illustrating what it means to be deprived of the things most people take for granted.

Lives Turned Upside Down: Homeless Children in Their Own Words and Photographs by Jim Hubbard. 1996. Two girls and two boys, ages nine to twelve, talk about their own personal experiences with homelessness and life in shelters.

Anyplace But Here: Young, Alone, and Homeless: What to Do by Ellen Switzer. 1992. Examines the problems that lead young people to live on the streets and what life is like for them there. Also provides information on how they can get help

Homeless to Harvard – the Liz Murray Story. This is the inspiring true story about a young girl, Liz Murray, who despite being homeless at 15 and dealing with personal tragedy manages to finish high-school and accepted to Harvard.

Movies*

Up (2009). A little boy named Russell is a stowaway aboard the balloon-powered house
The Little Red Wagon (2012). Zach (Chandler Canterbury) sets out to help the homeless of America with his wagon.
Pursuit of Happyness (2006). Will Smith and Jaden Smith. Life is a struggle for single father Chris Garner. Evicted from their apartment, he and his young son find themselves alone with no place to go. Even though Chris eventually lands a job as an intern at a prestigious brokerage firm, the position doesn’t pay. The pair must live in shelters and endure many hardships, but Chris refuses to give in to despair as he struggles to create a better life for himself and his son.
Blind Side (2009). Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron), a homeless black teen, has drifted in and out of the school system for years. Then Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock) and her husband, Sean (Tim McGraw), take him in. The Tuohys’ eventually become Michael’s legal guardians, transforming both his life and theirs.
Same Kind of Different as Me (2017) Jon Voight. International art dealer Ron Hall must befriend a dangerous homeless man in order to save his struggling marriage to his wife, a woman whose dreams will lead all three of them on the journey of their lives.
The Soloist (2009) Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey Jr. Lost Angeles columnist Steve Lopez has reached an impasse in his life. His marriage is on the rocks, and he’s disillusioned with his job. Then, while wandering through L.A.’s Skid Row, he spots a homeless man playing a two-stringed violin with a virtuoso’s skill. Lopez initially thinks of the man, named Nathaniel Ayers, as just a story idea. But as he begins to unravel the mystery of Ayers’ strange fate, he realizes that a change is happening within himself.
The Lady in the Van (2015) The true story of Miss Shepherd, an eccentric homeless woman of uncertain origins, who “temporarily” parked her broken-down van in writer Alan Bennett’s London driveway, and proceeded to live there for the next 15 years.
Time Out of Mind (2014). George (Richard Gere) seeks refuge at Bellevue Hospital, a Manhattan intake center for homeless men, where his friendship with a fellow client helps him try to repair his relationship with his estranged daughter.
The Public (2018) Alec Baldwin, Emilio Estevez. An act of civil disobedience turns into a standoff with police when homeless people in Cincinnati take over the public library to seek shelter from the bitter cold.
The Fisher King (1991) Robin Williams, Jeff Bridges. A former radio DJ, suicidal and despondent because of a terrible mistake he made, finds redemption in helping a homeless man with mental illness who was an unwitting victim of that mistake.
Dark Days (2000) Documentary. A cinematic portrait of the homeless population who live permanently in the underground tunnels of New York City.

*Some of these movies are not suitable for children due to profanity and graphic content.

On behalf of the men, women and families we serve who are experiencing homelessness, thank you for supporting The Lord’s Place through your participation in SleepIn for SleepOut this year.