Despite Covid-19 spreading more and more everyday, Badin events continued last week. One of these events was Shantytown.

Shantytown is an annual event at Badin that spreads awareness about homelessness. Small groups encompass many things like eat a dinner similar to what you would eat on the street, sleep in the cold weather outside, and listen to a speaker talk about their experience with homelessness. Megan Halverson, service coordinator, had some insights on how Shantytown was different this year.

“Although things were different this year, we tried to do things we always do like the speaker and small groups and I think it went well,” Megan Halverson said.

Things were different this year as students were not allowed to spend the night as usual. Another change is the speaker. This year, the speaker was Melissa, a person experiencing homelessness who works for the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition. While they usually come and speak in person, that was not possible this year. To make up for this, Melissa joined us on a Zoom call and told her inspiring story about homelessness. One of the people who was inspired was Ian Sabourin.

“It was very cool to hear her story as it was very inspiring,” Sabourin said.

Sabourin is a junior who helped lead a small group. Small groups is another big part of Shantytown. These were also much different this year as groups had to stay socially distant and keep masks on the entire night.