Warming to a cause -- in the cold

Interfaith Outreach & Community Partners' annual Sleep Out is in the final stretch, but the Wayzata-based nonprofit was still about $200,000 short of its $1.5 million goal as of Friday afternoon.

Organizers said it's unusual to come up so short so close to the end of the event. The Sleep Out, which began Nov. 10, is scheduled to end Sunday. Proceeds are used in part to provide housing assistance in the suburbs.

"We're seeing more people donating, but we think the contributions are smaller," said IOCP spokeswoman Lenore Franzen. "People are feeling squeezed a little bit more this year. We're hoping for a Christmas miracle."

Franzen said this year's situation is troubling because IOCP already had lowered its goal after falling short of the $1.7 million target it set last year, when it raised $1.5 million. She said higher gas prices and the metro area's home foreclosure problem could be partly to blame.

"It's not that the need isn't there," she said -- the lower goal was simply an attempt to be more realistic in setting a target. "This $1.5 million will allow us to maintain the same level of services even though the need is increasing."

The Sleep Out was founded by Wayzata businessman Bob Fisher in 1996. Fisher, who owns Bob's Shoe Repair at the Wayzata Bay Center, came up with the idea of sleeping in a tent in his front yard to help raise money for the IOCP. The nonprofit also provides food and other emergency assistance services to families.

Since the Sleep Out began, hundreds of west metro residents have followed Fisher's example and helped IOCP collect more than $8 million.

With only two days left in this year's campaign, IOCP was to hold an All-Star Sleep Out outside Sunsets Restaurant in Wayzata on Friday night. Fisher and other west-metro residents who have slept out a combined 600 nights during the course of the 12-year event were scheduled to sleep outside the restaurant, Franzen said.

Wayzata Central Middle School eighth-grader Peter Larson planned to take part in the All Star Sleep Out. For the past eight years, he has spent anywhere from one night to six weeks sleeping outdoors in a tent in his front yard to drum up pledges for IOCP. He raised $20,000 for the group in 2006.

On Dec. 16, Punch Pizza in Wayzata held a benefit with Larson called "Pizzas for Peter." The restaurant contributed 50 percent of all sales made during the event. It helped the 13-year-old raise more than $2,500. He's raised more than $43,000 total this year.

Larson planned to sleep out Friday night in an igloo at Sunsets.

Normally, Fisher, 59, doesn't camp outdoors for the event anymore, but he serves as a mentor to Larson and other Sleep Out alums. He said the initiative Larson, brothers Colin and Zach Verbick and Nick Lindquist have shown, as well as other young people, has kept him involved all these years. The Verbicks and Lindquist, now in their 20s, slept out during the event as high school students. All five "All Stars" planned to camp outdoors in Wayzata Friday night.

"To see them take this on and learn that they as one person can make a difference is amazing," Fisher said. "I would do this until I'm 106."