The Step-by-Step Big Sleep Out - January 2015

On the night of Friday 30th January Calthorpe Park School’s Head Prefects of Charities, Maddy G and Ria H arranged the Calthorpe Park Big Sleep Out!  In aid of the Aldershot based charity, Step by Step, the CPS Big Sleep Out aimed to raise awareness of the many young people who are homeless and live on the streets. The challenge was to sleep ‘rough’ on the school grounds to empathise and raise money for people in such a dire situation.  A total of 20 brave Year 11 students and 5 members of staff all turned up with very basic sleeping aids; pillows and air beds were banned, and luxuries such as mobile phones were totally off limits for the night!

Even though, for health and safety reasons, we did not sleep outside, the Main Hall at CPS certainly did get very very cold and keeping warm was a real challenge – unbeknown to the students, the large windows were open all night!  The cold only made everyone think even deeper about just how much of a struggle life must be being homeless, especially at this time of year. Gill, a representative from the charity very kindly visited to give a talk regarding the hard-ships of homeless teenagers in our local area and explain how Step-by-Step charity is run; this was a definite eye-opener for all.

Before some fun and games to keep spirits up, we were all treated to some vegetable soup, kindly donated by our school caterers, Pabulum - this helped fuel our bodies from the inside!

The night certainly was challenging for everyone, and very little ‘sleep’ actually occurred on the Big Sleep Out - mainly because of the cold (and distractions such as heavy snow-fall!) and the very hard floor.  But morale was boosted by a sense of ‘we’re all in this together’ unity, which helped the hours pass a little quicker.

A big ‘well done’ to all those who participated, it certainly was a new challenge that the pupils and staff at Calthorpe Park had never endured before. We are hoping to now make this an annual fundraising event.

If you would like more information on the Step by Step charity, or would like to donate to this worthy cause you can find details by visiting their website. So far £260 has been raised!  For events of the evening, please visit the CPS twitter timeline.

Ms A Coackley