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NEWCOMERS


Lynchburg GUIDE


Understanding Homelessness by Shannon Brennan


D


ieyun “April” Song ’15 has traveled much farther than the 7,000 miles from her native Beijing since coming


to Lynchburg College in the fall of 2011. It’s hard to believe that a student who ranked shopping among her favorite pastimes slept outside half the month of November so she could begin to understand homelessness. Now she doesn’t even see that effort as par- ticularly heroic. “I’m warm,” she said, “not like the real homeless. I’m lucky I have a real house; I have a real bed. I just can’t imagine the feeling of ‘now it’s dark, but now I have nowhere to go.’”


April was one of two dozen LC students who braved the elements during Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, but one of only two who chose to sleep out longer. April readily acknowledges that she came


from a privileged household, but thanks to her participation in the Bonner Leaders Pro- gram, she has come to know the reasons for poverty and homelessness. “It gives a deeper understanding of the poverty issue,” she said, adding that she can no longer assume people are poor because they are lazy. Sleeping out in the cold to raise money for the homeless is only one of April’s mis-


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