Jessica’s sleeping rough

By Tania Martin
FOR Jessica Gross, going without food and the comforts of home was a small price to pay to make a difference.
The 15-year-old recently took the 40-hour famine challenge to heart.
But she went one step further and spent a weekend, from 22 to 23 August, living in a tent with nothing but a sleeping bag.
Jessica chose to go without food, furniture and the comforts of home.
She drank water out of an old horse food bucket and endured a blustery weekend in her tent.
That weekend Jessica endured freezing temperatures of up to 12.8 degrees and was thrashed by 87 km/h winds.
Her mother Fiona said she was amazed the tent stayed up. “It was freezing and the wind was blowing so strong when we were putting up the tent that if you let go, it would have ended up in Pakenham,” she said.
Jessica wrapped herself up in her sleeping bag like a cocoon and settled in for a cold night.
“It was pretty scary,” she said. “I could hear everything around me – the horses galloping and the wind was really loud.”
But Jessica said that was nothing compared to what kids in Africa have to deal with every day.
“Just imagine sweltering heat which randomly changes to hail and you don’t have a tent but something that could fall down any second, leaving you stranded in the middle of the night,” she said.
Jessica chose to sleep outside to experience what kids in the slums of Africa have to go through every day.
“Kids in Africa don’t get to sleep inside and only get one meal a day if they are lucky,” she said.
“They have no furniture and have to walk 10 miles just to get one bucket of water for their family … I wanted to try and make a difference to those kids.”
Jessica raised more than $300 for the 40-hour famine in just three short weeks.
She decided to take up the challenge last month after seeing a slide show at school about what was happening to poverty stricken kids in Africa.
“I was thinking of doing a sausage sizzle as well but I didn’t have enough time,” Jessica said.
She is calling for all Australians to do more to help.
“If you think about it we have so much and they get nothing,” Jessica said. “The comparisons between here and there are absolutely insane.”
Jessica said if she could raise $300 in just over three weeks, then next year with more planning she could collect up to $2000.
She believes that if every student in her year level (150 kids) more than $300,000 could be raised towards cause.
This could feed up to 52,500 kids for a month. Jessica also hopes to be chosen for the 40-hour famine’s youth ambassador program.
Anyone who raises more than $200 is eligible for the program.
“I want to travel there and do what I can to help because it’s not fair that we have everything just because we are lucky enough to be born here,” Jessica said.
She said going over to work in troubled areas overseas was on the top of her list of things to do before she died.
“There are so many places it will be hard to choose, but Ethiopia is pretty bad,” Jessica said.
Jessica wants to follow in her friend’s footsteps.
“My friend went over there with his church and built classrooms, houses and villages by making bricks by hand,” she said. “I can do that – it’s not like I don’t have hands – God gave me hands and I should use them.”
Jessica is calling on others to take up the challenge.
“It’s just something small that will make a huge difference,” she said.