Don Bosco Prep Faculty and Students Bring Awareness to Poverty and Homelessness
Poverty Awareness Week was held at Don Bosco Prep during the week of March 26 - 30, 2012 in order to bring awareness and attention to poverty and homelessness in the United States and in other countries.
The week started with an assembly on the school's Mission Trip to the Republic of Nicaragua in February. Students and faculty members who went on the trip presented videos they had made on how the poor live there, the survival of the human spirit, the outcasts in society such as the disabled and the elderly, how people earn livings and the injustices they endure, and the Salesian technical schools they visited in the cities of Granada and Managua. Alumnus Nick Magrogan `05 educated the students on Salesian involvement such as the Gospel Roads program and efforts in Haiti and other poverty stricken countries.
Students fasted in silence during lunch on Tuesday, and brought food for the soup kitchen in Newark. Wednesday was a dress-down day to raise money for the Haitian Children of Hope organization, and that night the students slept outside on campus in a "Box City". Thursday the Ironmen Speak Out Club brought awareness to unethical working conditions through its Sweat Shop Event and Friday was spent bringing awareness to the plight of child soldiers.
The pupose of Poverty Awareness Week was to provide consciousness raising events and programs to enable students to become aware of the extent and realities of poverty.