Raise your hand if you like to camp. Ok, some of you. How about campfires, do you like sitting around a roaring campfire chit-chatting? Some more hands probably went up. Smores? Who doesn’t like roasted marshmallows and chocolate on a graham cracker!!!
I love to camp. Love all those things you do when you camp. Camped as a child, camp as an adult, even though some may say camping in a travel trailer is not real camping, but those people usually don’t have travel trailers. It’s plain ole trailer envy. 
So it is my love for camping that deluded me into thinking I could live in a van for five days.
Let me tell you–living in a van is NOTHING like camping. I was mistaken. There is no campfire, roasting of marshmallows, and it is illegal if you use the outdoors as a potty! Living in your car is stress-filled and tiring and I only did it for FIVE DAYS!
Worry and shame seem to be your constant companion, and the fear is always there also. Fear of being exposed as a homeless person, fear that you will get knifed, burglarized, raped, murdered, kidnapped, abducted by aliens, eaten by werewolves. Fear that you won’t have any money for gas or food. Fear that you won’t find a bathroom or a shower. And these are just fears that a single person like myself experiences, add 100 times that to those fears, if you have children.
Being homeless is not like camping in any way. Please help Shepherd’s Gate get the word out about 24 in Your Car, our new 24-hour-live-in-your-car-a-thon event. Like us on our 24 in Your Car facebook page, follow us on 24 in Your Car Twiiter page, and stay plugged in with Shepherd’s Gate (www.shepgate.org) to find out all the ways you can make a difference in the lives of homeless women and children.
Thank you! And stay tuned for the new series of videos next week, and our cool video cooking contest–Iron Chef Convenience Store!!
