PATCHOGUE, NY – NOVEMBER 13, 2006 –The students, alumni, faculty and staff of St. Joseph’s College will brave the cold weather and forfeit their everyday luxuries of rich meals and warm shelter to help the homeless by camping out in cardboard boxes and staging an overnight sleep-out on Friday, November 17, 2006 from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. in the College’s Quad located on its Suffolk Campus.

A past tradition of the College, which first began in 1991, the College’s newly formed Habitat for Humanity Club revived the event by organizing student groups to team up and raise funds as well as help increase awareness of homelessness and the poverty that exists around us. With a fundraising goal of $4,000, all proceeds from this year’s event will be donated to the organization Habitat for Humanity.

According to the Nassau-Suffolk Coalition for the Homeless (NSCH), thousands of homeless persons are living on Long Island, with two thirds as members of families and half as children. The NSCH also reports that approximately three quarters of Long Island’s homeless are hidden, because they are doubled and tripled up with relatives and friends, moving from one emergency situation to the next, and one quarter live on the street in abandoned cars and vacant buildings.

During the weeks preceding the sleep-out, St. Joseph’s College also teamed up with Midnight Run, a volunteer organization dedicated to finding common ground between the housed and the homeless, by collecting sweatshirts. In over 900 relief missions per year, Midnight Run volunteers from churches, synagogues, schools and other civic groups to distribute food, clothing, blankets and personal care items to the homeless poor on the streets of New York City.

About St. Joseph's College

St. Joseph’s College has been dedicated to providing a diverse population of students in the New York metropolitan area with an affordable education rooted in the liberal arts tradition since 1916. Independent and coeducational, the College provides a strong academic and value-oriented education at the undergraduate and graduate levels, aiming to prepare each student for a life characterized by integrity, intellectual and spiritual values, social responsibility, and service. With campuses located in the Clinton Hill area of Brooklyn and in Patchogue, Suffolk, Long Island, the College offers degrees in over 22 majors, special course offerings and certificates, affiliated and pre-professional programs through its School of Arts and Sciences and its School of Professional and Graduate Studies.