photo by: Emma Delk

Julie Ernest, left, key manager at Texas Roadhouse at The Highlands, builds the restaurant’s cardboard stage with help from her daughter Camrie Ernest during Friday’s Youth Services System 2024 Wheeling SleepOut on Market Plaza in Wheeling.

WHEELING — A life-sized grand piano, giant banjo and other music-themed structures made out of cardboard covered the ground of Market Plaza during Youth Services System 2024 Wheeling SleepOut.

The SleepOut serves as the primary fundraiser for YSS’s Transitional Living program. Local organizations and individuals created elaborate cardboard structures on Friday evening as part of the event’s Boxed-In Design contest.

The Transitional Living program assists local youth ages 17-21 in building the life skills, education and work experience to become independent adults in the community.

Participants in the design contest must build their submissions out of cardboard to raise awareness for youth in the community who may be living on their own for the first time. Each submission must also include a sleepable space to tie into the event’s “sleep-out” theme.

Elizabeth Griffith, YSS media and communications coordinator, said the SleepOut had raised over $40,000 for the program.

She added this was not only an increase from last year’s total of $27,500, but this year’s event also had four more teams participating.

Local service organizations and businesses, including the Samaritan House, Northwood Health Systems, State Farm, Paree Insurance and the Health Plan, submitted boxes for the contest.

“I think we’ve at least doubled in size in the amount of people we have here tonight compared to last year,” Griffith said. “There’s a lot of foot traffic here, which allows more people to see us and decide to donate or even participate in the contest.”

Market Plaza was crowded with the 17 teams crafting their structures centered around the contest’s “music” theme.

Participants had a variety of interpretations of the prompt. Some teams opted to make their boxes homages to music artists while others created life-sized instruments.

YSS maintenance employee Beth Chieffalo themed her cardboard creation around her favorite band, the Red Hot Chili Peppers. She decorated her box with two giant cardboard peppers on top of the black box sporting the band’s red logo.

Chieffalo said the creation took four hours to make. Her primary materials were cardboard, masking tape, colored tablecloths and fairy lights.

“I work for YSS and since this goes towards our transitional living program, I really wanted to participate,” Chieffalo said. “There’s a lot of homeless youth, not just in West Virginia, but all over the country. It’s important to get these kids in stable living conditions and help them learn basic life skills and how to be an adult.”

While Chieffalo had come to the event with her structure mostly finished, the team of Wheeling Texas Roadhouse employees was busy an hour into the event erecting the cardboard stage, which would need to be ready for judging by 8 p.m.

This was the first year a team from Texas Roadhouse competed in the event. Teresa Collins, Texas Roadhouse assistant kitchen manager, says she was inspired to gather a team of servers, cooks and managers to enter the contest after working with YSS multiple times for fundraisers.

“I really wanted to do this because I was an emancipated minor who was on the street back in 1997 and figured out how to make my way out,” Collin said. “It’s really nice that kids today don’t have to go through that anymore.”

Tammy Kruse, YSS Director of Development and Public Relations, was impressed by the “time and talent” spent creating the different structures on the plaza.

“The imagination here is impressive,” Kruse said. “It reminds me of an art installation because it will all be here tonight and then gone the next morning. You just get a bunch of people gathered here who just want to be a part of something positive in the area for a night.”

Kruse added youth in the transitional living program helped build structures for the contest.

“The kids have been blending in with the rest of everybody, and that’s intentional because we don’t want them to stand out,” Kruse said. “We want them to have a lot of fun tonight too.”

Though contest participants would have to wait until 9:30 p.m. to see who would win the design contest, the event’s top team and individual fundraisers were determined at noon on Friday before set-up for the SleepOut began.

YSS employee Holly Fox was the top individual fundraiser, raising $6,368 for the program, which earned her a stay in a Treetop Villa in Grand Vue Park. The​ Transitional Living Program employees’ team, the “TLP Tornadoes,” raised the most as a team, $7,000, which earned them $1,000 worth of gift cards.

“It’s great to have so many people and businesses that want to help local youth in Wheeling,” Griffith said. “This event helps the next generation of people who are going to become adults. It’s important to have emotional and physical support as you enter adulthood, whether that be securing housing or finding a job.”