MENOMONIE, Wis. (WLAX/WEUX) – Love Church and Zoe Now held a fundraiser where volunteers slept outside to raise awareness on homelessness. Zoe Now co-founder, Lizie Hunt, says this is their second time hosting the event, “We are raising funds for homeless people in Uganda. So, everybody (that) is participating in this has been sleeping out all night to do that, to raise awareness. And they each raise their own funds. So, similar to the polar plunge where you raise funds in order to fund the same concept as they raise funds for sleeping out here.”

Other Zoe Now Co-Founder, Robert Hunt, adds, “It’s important to talk about this and get people aware and cognizant of the fact that this is how people live all the time. You know, it’s a little bit of an inconvenience for us, but it’s like, yeah, well how do you think people are every single night? You know, if this was tough for you, then imagine doing this all the time.”

During this event, members had a fire, fellowship, little to no sleep and pancakes when they woke up. Lizie says it all started after one of their missionaries walked past a man sleeping in the streets and bought him a sleeping bag, “Then this whole idea was birthed of, Why don’t we do this? Why don’t we sleep out, you know, with the homeless or, you know, like we are homeless to raise this awareness that this is real.”

Lizie says the purpose behind this event is to make more people aware of a global problem, “A problem all around our world is homelessness. And, you know, what it’s really like to raise awareness is really to go ahead and make people know about the actual problem that is around the globe and to help a neighbor out. I mean, we have this in the States as well. You know, that extend a hand, let’s help our neighbor. And so by taking a stand and saying, hey, this is and this is an issue in our world, our hope, our prayer is that kind of burdens people’s hearts to extend some help and maybe even if they feel lied to give onto our organization. And then every single dollar that we’re raising is going back into the street children in Uganda.”

Organizers say their fundraising goal is $15,000 with $7,000 raised so far. Lizie says all donations and proceeds from the fundraiser will go to the homeless children in Uganda.