What do Mayor Mark Begich, a bunch of high school students and the city's homeless have in common? They all use items such as toilet paper, underwear and warm winter clothes, necessities for survival in Anchorage. Unfortunately, some homeless people are still in need of these basics. High school juniors Sam Gottstein and Justin Hurst wanted to do something about it.
They organized a Bare Necessities Campaign, a school district-wide drive for items such as paper goods, eating utensils, underwear and winter coats for distribution to local homeless shelters. They recruited school coordinators and enlisted corporate sponsors to get the word out and get schools involved. At the end of the weeklong drive, toilet paper was being wheeled out of Anchorage schools by the cart-full.
"I was very pleased with the results of campaign," said Gottstein, sixteen-year-old Bare Necessities coordinator. "We got over 20,000 items school district-wide, this includes over 4,500 rolls of toilet paper, 1,000 winter jackets, thousands of plastic utensils, paper cups, 400 socks...you name it. We brought in a lot of winter clothing, other clothing also, even though it wasn't on the list of items. And a lot of paper goods that will help out many of the shelters we decided to help."
However, the drive wasn't only about helping the homeless, another goal was to raise community awareness of the city's homeless population and spotlight their needs.
"There are anywhere from 4,000 to 10,000 homeless in Anchorage," Gottstein said. "And that number, which is such a wide variety, shows how little people know about the subject...So there is a huge homeless population in Anchorage... to get any publicity for them, and to have anyone decide they want to help the homeless, in my view, is a good thing."
Gottstein hopes that the campaign will allow people to see the homeless from a new perspective
"If there was one thing both Justin and I would want, it is to be able to help change at least one person's life," he said. "To have people become aware of the problems of homelessness, and how anyone can become homeless in a heartbeat. And how there is so much of a negative connotation to the homeless, because you assume so many things, 'Oh, they don't work,' or 'Oh, they don't want to work.' It is important for us to realize that there are so many different possibilities that can occur, and that we don't discriminate based on those stereotypes."
All 21,514 items collected were donated to various shelters around town, including Brother Francis Shelter, Kid's Café, Clare House, Anchorage Rescue Mission and many other shelters. Of all of the items, the most came from Stellar Secondary School and Service High School. Although Stellar collected the most items, Service won the competition by collecting the most winter coats and will be recieve the municipal award shortly. Despite all of the friendly competition, 1,000 roles or toilet paper will still only last Beans Café half a year. Gottstein said that both he and Hurst are planning on doing the drive again next year. They hope younger students will continue organizing Bare Necessities, making it an annual event.
Students reach out to homeless
