Byte Night 2012

100,000 young people in the UK faced homelessness last year.  Action for Children, a national charity, is committed to bringing that number down and keeping youth off the streets.  The organization focuses on providing support for neglected, vulnerable children to prevent homelessness.  These are children who are physically and/or emotionally abused at home, living in poverty, leaving their current care system, or unaccompanied asylum seekers who have no one else to turn to.

Every year for the past 15 years, hundreds of IT professionals have committed to sleeping on the streets so they don’t have to.  This annual event is called Byte Night.

When I ran the JP Morgan 5k earlier this year, I met a great group of people from the Dell London office that invited me to participate in Byte Night with them.  So we began fundraising by reaching out to our colleagues and requesting donations, sponsoring game nights at the local pub, and hosting bake sales.

My Rolo cookies were a hit and brought in $45!  

Thanks for the recipe, Pinterest!

The Dell sleepers raised over $3,500 for Action for Children.  Way to go, team!  But that was just the beginning…

The 10 sleepers, myself included, met at the office at 5:00 armed with our raincoats, sleeping bags, and layers of leggings and wool socks.  But of course, right as we left the office to head to the tube station, it started to rain.  A steady, hard rain that lasted 12 hours non-stop!

What was I expecting?  I hiked 26 miles in the rain and mud, I ran a 5k in the rain and mud, and now I would be sleeping in the rain and mud.  Every time I do a charity event here, it pours.  One of the other sleepers, at about 3AM looked up to the sky and started pleading, “God!  We’re trying to do a good thing here… can you give us a break??  Please?!”  Hahaha – I guess God had more important things to do Friday night, or He wanted us to really experience what it’s like for a homeless child on the streets facing the British elements.

By the time we got to City Hall for the event registration, dinner, and auction we were already soaked.  Luckily the heat was on at City Hall and the indoor part of the evening lasted 4 hours.  So we were able to get dry and warm before heading back outside.

But at 10:30, it was time.

The first aid tent in the shadow of City Hall

The Dell group grabbed our gear (which Action for Children had packed in giant waterproof trash bags for us, making us look even more like vagabonds) and found a spot in Potter’s Field near Tower Bridge to bunk down for the night.

At first, I thought it was awesome to be sleeping next to City Hall, with Tower Bridge as a giant night-light.  That feeling quickly wore off.

Since it was pouring, we were going to wait as long as possible to actually try to get some shut-eye.  So we socialized, drank to keep warm, and seriously considered paying £50 for a Domino’s pizza (they auctioned off the pizzas to raise some last-minute funds).

Trying to stay awake as long as possible

At about 2:00 in the morning, I was so cold and wet and tired that I started shaking uncontrollably.  Lynda had been asleep for a while and she looked mighty snug in her sleeping bag, so the rest of us decided it was time.

We made one last run to the port-a-potties and then set up our umbrellas 300-style. 

I say 300-style because they reminded me of the Spartan shields the soldiers would layer on top of each other to protect themselves from arrows and spears.  Except we were trying to protect ourselves from the rain.

We laid our tarp out and then stuffed our sleeping bags into the giant Byte Night plastic bags gifted to us.  Then we had to somehow take off our shoes, avoid getting our feet wetter (they had already gotten soaked through our shoes from walking around in the mud for hours), and then shimmy into the sleeping bag/plastic bag combo.  Luckily I was not the last one going to sleep, so William came over and jumped up and down with me so I could scootch lower and lower into my sleeping bag.  Then he lowered me like a plank down onto the tarp.  Man, I wish I had a video of that.  It was an ordeal.

Half an hour, I had to pee like crazy.

Lying on the wet tarp with rain dripping onto me didn’t help.  I held it for another half hour before opening my eyes at 3:00 and finding two of the other girls staring back at me.  I whispered, “I have to go the bathroom” and they both started laughing and said, “Us too!  Let’s go!”

So we shimmied back out of our sleeping bags, ran to the port-a-potties, and then got back to our campsite.  This time there was no one to help us into our bags, so we just jumped into them and fell back down onto our backs.  Terrible technique.  During the fall, water seeped into the top part of my sleeping bag so now my hat and hair were soaked.  Plus there was a horrible nagging voice in the back of my mind telling me I was getting gangrene from my soaking wet feet.

This was no good.  As I lied there, a man from another company set up behind us started moaning, “I hate being homeless!”  I feel ya.  Then the wind picked up and a few umbrellas blew away.  Bruce, next to me on my right side, was struggling to hold his down while half asleep/half awake.  He started mumbling that this was the worst night of his life.  That’s when I piped in with, “You’ve had a great life if this is the worst night of your life!”  But honestly, I think it was probably the worst night of my life, too.  I can’t remember being more miserable.

We put on our brave faces while out there

At 4:00 we couldn’t lie there anymore.  The “sleep” was supposed to last until 6AM.  Then the event organizers were to wake us up, give us breakfast, and at 7:00 we would be on our way.  But we weren’t the only team struggling.  The organizers actually came around at 4:00 with the first aid crew and asked if we were warm and dry. 

OF COURSE NOT!  HOW WAS ANYONE KEEPING WARM AND DRY?!

So they told us not to feel obligated to stay and that a lot of people were leaving.  We sat up and looked around us and sure enough, at least half of the 300 other people out in the field were packing it up.  But where were they going?  No one drives in London and the tubes don’t start running until 5:30 on the weekends.

We tried to tough it out for about 30 more minutes, but it was getting unbearable at that point.  I was getting colder and wetter.  I wasn’t going to risk getting sick because I was headed to the states the next week to see Bailey, and I couldn't be sick around her.  And then the second half of the week I’d be in California for Cristy’s wedding.  Images of me as a sneezing, wheezy, coughing bridesmaid during the ceremony started flashing through my mind.  It wasn’t worth it.  I was throwing in the towel.

I called my trusty London cabbie and sure enough, he would be there to pick me up in 5 minutes!  It was $45 to get across the city to get home at that time of the night, but it was worth every penny to not have to wait for the tube and lug my backpack, changing bag, and sleeping bag in a giant trash bag on the subway.  I didn’t have the energy for that at 4:30.

I jumped out of my sleeping bag, threw everything inside the trash bag, and dragged it down to the street. 

David was actually awake when I got home half an hour later.  He had laid out my slippers and giant comfy robe for me.  I took the hottest shower ever and then flew into bed, wrapping the duvet around me.  But as I lied there in warmth and comfort, I couldn’t help but think about how I had kept telling myself all night, “It’s only one night.  It’s only a few more hours.  It’s only a couple more hours…”

For real homeless people out on the streets, they don’t know when they’re going to get a hot shower, or be able to sleep in a warm bed.  They don’t have spouses waiting for them with slippers and robes and towels, or washing machines to throw their wet clothes into.  They have to wear those sopping, filthy clothes the next day.  And the day after that. 

As I’ve travelled through developing countries and seen extreme poverty like children living in dung huts in Africa or Bedouins with nothing but makeshift tents in the deserts of Jordan, I’ve felt very little sympathy for the homeless in rich, Western nations like the UK or US.  It actually really bothers me when I see young people, like the drag rats in Austin, panhandling when they still have their whole lives ahead of them, and the potential to do some good in the world.  Instead, they’ve made some very bad decisions, gotten involved in drugs, crime, whatever, and ended up on the corner begging for cash.

But sleeping on the street that Friday has definitely made me much more compassionate.  I realized I don’t know their situation or how they ended up where they did.  I can only hope that by raising money and awareness for Action for Children, that we’re doing our part to help prevent homelessness.