The next morning, after a meager breakfast of toast and juice, the youth made bagged lunches with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and snacks to be delivered to a soup kitchen in Camden.
In his talk, Larry DiPaul discussed his friendship with Steven, a homeless man in Camden.
After a car accident left him unemployed, and without family to support him, Steven ended up homeless under the Ben Franklin Bridge, living in a cardboard box, until his death.
In an activity planned to shake youth out of their comfort zone, a local police officer arrived and "evicted" them from their homes in Sienna Hall, declaring that they were trespassing on private property.
The youth were thus forced to move across the parish parking lot, to Borromeo Hall, and only able to take half of their cardboard dwellings.
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On Saturday night, the youth ate beef vegetable or chicken noodle soup out of soup cans, and said a rosary in front of a campfire. The next day, after breakfast and Mass, the teens left Cardboard City and returned to their own neighborhoods.
The weekend was designed to help the youth "understand what happens to (the homeless) in real life, and have compassion for them," said Christine Burnite, junior youth group leader.
"The whole weekend humbled the kids," she said.
