At the beginning of the school year, president of the Gay Straight Trans* Alliance (GSTA) Wyatt Fries announced the club’s goal for the year: to raise $1,000 to donate to the Urban Peak Homeless Shelter in downtown Colorado Springs.

Urban Peak, which serves only homeless youth, says that it costs about $50 to provide one night of shelter to one youth. Fries’ goal was to provide 20 nights of shelter.

On December 30, 2015, the club reached their goal. The donation period was set to end only one day later.

This issue was important to the GSTA in particular not only because of the age similarities between the club members and the people in the homeless shelter. It was also because an estimated 40% of homeless youth identify on the LGBTQ+ spectrum.

In mid-november, when the air was beginning to get cold and frost began lining the ground in the morning, eight GSTA members slept outside, in an annual fundraiser put on by Urban Peak. “I figured that going to a community that some of them [members of the GSTA] have been a part of in the past, would be something close to them that they’d want to take a part in,” said Fries in an earlier interview with the Prospector.

The feat was by no means a small one. In past years, the GSTA has not participated in, much less raised a considerable amount of money, for any cause. The club will have to work deliberately in following years to top this year’s greatness.