Raising $6,475 in a freezing night: A community's commitment to help the homeless 

The World Population Review website states from 2024 statistics that Missouri has approximately 5,992 people who are homeless.

From the cold winter weather of snow and ice to the hot humid heat of the summer, these individuals are out almost every night unless help is given to them by individuals or volunteer groups.

In Cape Girardeau, two not-for-profit groups are helping the cause: The Salvation Army and the lesser-known Street Level Cape Girardeau. Individuals can volunteer to help at either or both by doing things such as raising donation money or donating clothes, food or personal items.

A few volunteers from a local organization — LIFT Crisis Response Team — decided to brave the winter weather this past weekend to raise money for Street Level. They wanted to understand how those in the Southeast Missouri area survive the freezing weather.

Andrea Allstun of Jackson was one of the individuals who took this as an opportunity to learn about the difficulty of a winter’s night and sleeping outside.

On Feb. 21, she and a few LIFT members slept outside in 10-degree weather with whatever supplies they decided to bring.

Allstun, who has been volunteering to help with Street Level, said she discussed with Sarah Beggs of Street Level what many in the area have tried to be as realistic as possible. She said she learned most do not have luxury items such as snow bibs or basic winter clothing. Instead, most just wear lots of layers, along with gloves and boots, and some have tents and sleeping bags. Allstun said Street Level tries to give out hot hands, emergency blankets and other items to help during the winter months.

Trying to stay as realistic as possible while also not harming herself physically or her health, Allstun had three pairs of socks on to start with, boots too big for her, multiple jackets, multiple pants, gloves and a hat. Along with her clothing, she brought a piece of cardboard and an emergency blanket to lay on the floor as a buffer between her and the tent floor. She said even though she wore all this plus two blankets, she still felt the cold, frozen ground.

“I wanted to be as authentic as possible. I mean, obviously, I know that I am not going to be, it’s not going to be the same, because I have the luxury. I mean, I have a home. I have lots of stuff at my disposal, but I want to try to be as authentic as possible,” she said.

Throughout the night, Allstun said she had to change how she wore her items because of being cold and concerned about her feet. In a stroke of brilliance, and maybe some sleep deprivation, she used the plastic bags she carried her supplies in as a sock, adding a hot hand in each bag, and then adding her extra pair of gloves on her feet with another hot-hand warmer to make her feet warm up. She said this worked to help keep her comfortable enough to sleep a bit.

At 6 p.m., Allstun got to where she would sleep overnight at the Connection Point Church parking lot and stayed for 12 hours with two other individuals. However, from 5 p.m. to when she left, she did not drink anything, so she would not have to brave the weather at night and have to go to the bathroom.

Overall, she said she slept maybe two or three hours for the whole night, according to her fitness watch. She said she found herself wishing she had brought medication so she could go to sleep. That would have given her more sympathy for those who use various ways of numbing themselves to cope with their situation in desperate times.

During the night, Allstun said she did lots of thinking while trying to stay warm in her sleeping bag and thinking about the time she had left to be out in the cold.

“I tried to think about if this was my life. If this is what my life was like, sleeping in this tent. I’d look at my watch and I’d say, ‘I’m two hours in, I have 10 hours left’, you know. And so that bias of knowing that you get to go home, or that you get to know, you only have to endure this for just a little bit, and then it’s gonna be over. I tried hard to think about what I would think, which you can’t. It’s really hard to know, right, because it’s just like in anything you can’t, you can’t truly put yourself in somebody else’s shoes,” she said.

Having a known stopping time kept Allstun going, as well as knowing when she did leave, she would go to her house with a bed, warm food and warm shower, a luxury the homeless in the area do not get most of the time.

“I don’t claim to know the complexities of homelessness, and I don’t even have a viable solution for it. These people are hurting, and Street Level is helping them. You know, no matter, they’re meeting their needs, regardless of how they got there, and regardless of whether they deserve it or not. Because, honestly, none of us deserve anything that we have, right, and so regardless of all of that, Street Level is meeting their need,” she said.

During the time Allstun and other LIFT members were sleeping out in the cold, they were raising money by asking for donations, which would go to Street Level. Those who felt they could donate gave cash to the individual or used their personal Venmo accounts to raise money.

Individuals also could give directly to Street Level by donating money or any items on its Facebook page. Overall, Street Level raised $6,475.55 to help put individuals into hotels, in case another cold front comes through or to just help the homeless individuals.

“Honestly, it wasn’t that big (to sleep outside). It was uncomfortable. But I feel like this is a gift that God’s given me. Like to do crazy things like this to bring awareness,” Allstun said about raising awareness of Street Level and the need to help the homeless in the area. “So for me, I don’t want people to say, ‘Oh, my gosh, you’re so awesome for sleeping outside when it’s 10 degrees’, you know, because for me, like yes, it was hard, yes, it was uncomfortable, but I also feel like it’s a gift that God’s given me to be able to do those things so that I can bring awareness and can make people think about things, right? I don’t want the focus to be on what I did. I want the focus to be on why I did it.”