Annual Sleep-A-Thon

Raised Funds For Workcampers

By Eliza Hallabeck

A fire burned outside Newtown Congregational Church on Saturday, January 8, keeping roughly 20 youth and six adult chaperones warm through the night as the group raised money and awareness.

Newtown Congregational Church Senior Pastor Matt Crebbin said Saturday’s event was the third annual Sleep-A-Thon held by NEWS (Newtown Ecumenical Workcamp Servants), otherwise known as the summer workcampers. The event, said Rev Crebbin, is held “both to raise funds and to draw awareness to challenges for people who are living in less than ideal conditions in both nearby places and in places like Appalachia.”

The roughly $3,000 raised by participants through support from sponsors, will fund roughly 50 percent of the cost for NEWS to travel to West Virginia this summer for the 2011 workcamp program.

To keep the participants warm, pizza, meatball subs, desserts, cider ,and hot chocolate were served.

“It went very well,” Rev Crebbin said, noting everyone survived despite a little more snow than normal. “It wasn’t as bad as some years.”

The “really good group” of NEWS youth, he said, built a temporary shelter using cardboard and some scrap lumber to sleep in for the night.

One NEWS member carved out a personal sleeping arrangement in the form of a snow cave.

About 15 members of NEWS spent the full night outside, while others slept indoors.

Construction for the temporary shelter took a few hours, Mr Crebbin said, but it slept 17 young adults within its cardboard walls.

NEWS will be going to Brenton, W.Va., through Appalachia Service Project. The group’s trip is planned for July 2–10. Participants are members of Newtown Congregational Church, Newtown United Methodist Church, St Rose of Lima, and, in the past, have also included young adults unaffiliated with any of these churches who simply want to join the effort.