When temperatures on the Slippery Rock University campus dipped into the 20s early Thursday morning, students staying overnight in cardboard shacks got a real taste of life on the streets.

"I don't think it was planned this way," said senior Aidan Timmerman, of New Castle. "But the cold gives us a better idea of what life is like for the homeless."

She and other students who attend Ginger Hill Unitarian Universalist Congregation built one of the 20 temporary shelters that had sprung up on the grassy quadrangle in front of Bailey Library.

Taking two-hour shifts, hundreds of Slippery Rock students participated in a 24-hour effort to raise awareness about the issue of homelessness. Seventeen student groups took part in the activity.

"Awareness is the first step toward change," Alice Kaiser-Drobney said. She is the director of Slippery Rock's Institute for Community, Service and Nonprofit Leadership.

The institute seeks to focus attention on different social problems each month.

"We want to have faculty and students see service as a way to learn," Ms. Kaiser-Drobney said.

This month's homelessness project included a clothing drive to collect hats, gloves and scarves. This weekend students were to deliver those items to Pittsburgh organizations that aid the homeless.

Another element of the monthlong program is publication of a newsletter devoted to the topic. The "Homeless Edition" of The Institute News included statistics on the problem and a list of 30 ways to help.

Ms. Kaiser-Drobney estimated that close to 1,000 students would be participating in the "cardboard village" project, taking one or more shifts in the unheated, flimsy structures.

Each unit was built mostly from flattened crates and boxes. Many were topped with blue plastic tarps.

"Walking by these cardboard shanties brings students closer to the idea that there are families and individuals in Butler County who need their support," graduate assistant Emily Fritz said. A resident of Slippery Rock, she works to encourage community service among faculty and students.

In addition to setting up the cardboard village, institute volunteers mounted 1,350 paper dolls on sticks and placed them all over campus. Each doll contains one of 57 different statistics on homelessness. The message on one doll was that 19 percent of homeless people were employed.

"We want students to take time to think about the bigger picture," Ms. Fritz said. "We want to remind them that there are people outside their immediate circle of family and friends who need help."

Jessica Spiker, a senior from Meyersdale, became involved in the homelessness project through a class she is taking in nonprofit leadership.

She agreed with Ms. Fritz that few students realized how many Americans were homeless, a condition which is defined as not having a permanent place to stay. Most estimates range from between 700,000 and 800,000 people.

"The village puts the problem right in front of us," Ms. Spiker said.

"We're learning how hard some people have it, and why we should appreciate what we have," said Dan Csonka, a freshman from Hampton.

He and his friend Matt Danik, a freshman from Tarentum, were warming their hands around a barrel in which a few logs were burning.

Mr. Danik said he had been involved in similar efforts through his church, Holy Family Catholic Church in Creighton, which has an annual Love Walk that provides aid to the homeless.

The institute has a schedule of events and activities that cover the academic year. Previous monthly efforts have concentrated on the problem of hunger and a future initiative will study inequity. "We'll look at the gap between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' and the social issues that divide people economically," Ms. Kaiser-Drobney said.

Organizers had praise for employees of the university's facilities department, who laid out the village and brought in warming barrels around which students gathered to fight off the cold.

The unseasonably cold mid-November temperatures, however, meant that participants were going to need more logs than expected.

"When you come back, bring some more wood," Ms. Timmerman asked Unitarian volunteers scheduled for later shifts at the temporary village.