On Friday night, Illinois quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase was homeless and living on the streets of downtown Champaign. So was Champaign Mayor Don Gerard; as was newly hired incoming Champaign police chief Anthony Cobb.

Downtown Champaign became a temporary home for city officials, local pastors and others late Friday and early Saturday as part of C-U at Home’s One Winter Night event. To raise awareness about homelessness and the organization, many people slept in cardboard boxes in the cold and the rain. As many as 150 volunteers helped throughout the night.

The event was coordinated by C-U at Home, a local branch of the national initiative 100,000 Homes organization, that identifies the homeless in the area and does its best helping the most vulnerable by finding temporary homes for them, employment opportunities and charity work.

Participants set up shelter along Neil Street from One Main to the city building as early as 5 p.m. Friday. For every $100 donated to a particular person, that person would stay an additional hour; the goal was for most, if not all, participants to stay until Saturday morning. Those staying overnight were limited to what they could bring; they were not allowed to bring items such as pillows, mattresses or most electronic devices, and they were limited to the clothing they brought with them.

Scheelhaase said team chaplain Jason Emerson and the pastor of his church were participating in the event and were talking about the experience to him. It wasn’t until recently that, Scheelhaase said, he made up his mind.

“I was kind of interested in it, thought I’d first come up for a couple of hours and hang out,” Scheelhaase said. “Then all of a sudden, last week, I decided I was going to stay the whole night and decided to come out here.”

Scheelhaase, along with others, said it was an important event in raising awareness of those who don’t have a proper place to call home in Champaign. Laura Huth, former Urbana councilwoman and consultant, said up to 500 people sleep in the streets, under bridges, in cars and in other unstable locations on any given night.

She said that, based on early Friday donation totals, the event was a success. Most of the 26 participants had already raised their minimum goal of $1,000 within a few hours. The idea of community members sleeping outside in downtown Champaign was the creation of Melany Jackson, project coordinator for C-U at Home. She has helped identify with the homeless by going to such lengths as selling many of her possessions and living in halfway homes.

The idea for the event transformed over time — going from participants sleeping outside their homes to them sleeping in Westside Park to its current form.

“The city said, ‘Well if you just have a few people, we’ll let you use downtown,’” Jackson said. “And we got a few public officials so that’s how we got to this stage.”

Despite the imminent rain and chillier temperatures, many took advantage of the opportunity and were enjoying raising awareness for homelessness. Pastor Hank Sanford of First Christian Church said he was using materials that he was allowed to bring to help prepare his home and also collaborate with fellow “box mates” to make the night more enjoyable.

“I guess we’re going to brave the weather,” Sanford said. “Rain is coming at 3 (a.m.). But we have a tarp here – so let it rain right?”