What was not planned that day was the torrential rain that soaked hooded sweatshirts and jeans, making the experience all the more real, says junior Jackie Murray.

For the last four years, junior and senior students at Willow Glen's Presentation High School—an all-girls Catholic college preparatory on Plummer Avenue—have voluntarily left their upper middle-class comforts to try and walk a day and a night in someone else's shoes.

For senior Sammi Gunasekera, this was her first experience sleeping outside, and junior Laura Aguirre says she participated to try and understand homelessness because it's not an easily solved situation.

Another junior, Maria Tran, says, "I live a pretty sheltered life. I've never experienced poverty, but I don't want to take things for granted."

The school encourages its students to be socially conscious with a variety of social projects and volunteer opportunities, but doesn't require community service, says one of the school's community involvement directors, Maggie Dellamano.

Senior Gina Yacoub agrees that if community service is required, people "aren't putting their whole heart and effort into it."

Gina and Willow Glen resident Vanessa Randazzo participated last year, but say each year they obtain a fresh perspective on the hopelessness and difficulties of homelessness.

Community involvement director Jaya Subramarian says the idea for Presentation's Homeless Immersion Program came from a similar program at Bellarmine, where community service is required.

The experience helps break some misconceptions by showing students that food stamps are not sufficient, public transportation is time-consuming and that shelters serving food are open at limited times, Subramarian says.

On March 25, the girls were separated into four groups of three to five students with a teacher and given a few dollars. Each group was given a profile such as single-parent family whose car has been repossessed or veterans looking for a minimum-wage job. Then the groups had to try to access the appropriate community services with their profile's resources.

All the groups had to first experience getting to a central destination, and that required a bus ride from Willow Glen to Monterey Highway. One student accidentally left her bus money on campus, creating her own first hardship until the group collected enough change for the ticket.

"It's kinda expensive," notes Jackie about the $3.75 student fare.

Inside the bus, a man with dirt stains on his clothes pulled a can of Budweiser from his pants and popped the top, spilling beer on the floor. Among such alien surroundings, one junior says, she was "a little nervous" to interact with people because she was worried they'd say, 'You're not really homeless.'"

Subramarian's group disembarked from the bus to ask for jobs at restaurants and explained to employers that they didn't have a phone number or address. Burger King and the Grocery Outlet seemed willing to consider hiring them, Vanessa says. But last year, all her group received "crazy looks" when they tried to apply for jobs without contact information, she adds.

Dellamano's group transferred buses and rode to the Catholic Worker House to cook dinner for and talk to shelter residents.

A third group, which was supervised by biology teacher Mike Pistacchi and school dean Peggy Schrader, accompanied the girls to Sacred Heart Community Services to learn about the food, clothing and job assistance services.

Sacred Heart Community Services pantry coordinator Karen Moretti says the agency serves approximately 300 families daily, of which 20 percent are homeless.

"We're like a Band-Aid," Moretti says. "We help people get by, but we try not to be a family tradition."

She says 90 percent of the homeless people served want to improve their lives, but "once you hit a certain level, it's hard to get on your feet."

Schrader says that when she did the program three years ago, her group stood in line to receive a bag of food at Sacred Heart's pantry. The members of a family who were living out of their car at the time saw the size of Schrader's group and offered the group one of their bags of groceries.

"It was powerful," Schrader says. The group thanked the family, but didn't accept the family's food, she adds.

After the tour at Sacred Heart, Schrader's group boarded another bus for downtown. The group had to arrive at Loaves and Fishes on Ninth Street before 4:30 p.m. to receive a meal with the homeless and working poor.

"I felt out of place, taking food that a homeless person could have eaten," Jackie says. "But we weren't questioned. I was expecting to be asked if we were homeless."

She adds that it was hard to talk to the homeless at her table because she didn't know where they were coming from, she says.

Vanessa, whose group ate dinner at the Emergency Housing Consortium, says a homeless man made an unfriendly comment, assuming the girls were observing for a class. After she explained it was voluntary and only done once a year, his attitude changed, she says.

"He had more respect that it wasn't out of obligation," she says.

Subramarian says social interactions with the homeless, although uncomfortable, were educational for the girls.

"There's a lot of anger and bitterness that comes with that life," Subramarian says.

After the meal, the groups made their way back to Presentation High School's campus to spend the night. The trip back included walking in the rain for an hour for two groups after they missed the bus.

"This is life for them every day," Gina says. "The good thing is we know tomorrow we have a warm bed, so I'm not worried."

Maria and Jamie Van Riper, whose group had $4 for dinner, equivalent to food stamps for a family of five, says the whole experience was eye opening.

"Four dollars to buy food is really depressing," Maria says. "We could either buy bananas and bread or peanut butter and bread.

Jamie says at the check-out aisle at the grocery store, the checker didn't subtract the advertised discount for the peanut butter, but because there were a lot of people in line, their teacher, Mike Pistacchi, used an extra dollar he carried.

"If we were homeless, we wouldn't be able to have the extra dollar," Jamie says.

Back at the school, the girls sat in hallways trying to do homework and found cardboard boxes in their school's trash that they laid on the concrete for cushioning.

When Presentation's swim team members offered their homeless classmates a tent, some of the program participants were elated, while others rejected the idea.

"It defeats the purpose of coming out here," junior Stately Hayes says.

Subramarian made the girls give the tent back, because she says the purpose of the experience was to see the amount of physical endurance required to sleep outside and then go to school the next day. She gave the girls a few blankets and sleeping bags to share.

"It was the worst night's sleep I ever got," Jackie says.

Vanessa says she probably got one hour of sleep, with only one blanket for two people, wet socks and her sweatshirt rolled up for a pillow.

She adds she needed a lot of coffee to stay alert in classes the next day and had a hard time concentrating. Although the experience was challenging, she acknowledges that "you can never truly get the real feel" of being homeless from a trip to a shelter and sleeping outside.

And one benefit they had was each other.

"Living a life that hard, you need someone else or a dog for companionship," she says.