ROBERTSDALE, Ala. — You expect to go on a camping trip with tents, sleeping bags and plenty of usually-forbidden goodies to eat. Let’s cue up a sing-along.

Now, take away the sleeping bag. No campfire either.

Take away the tent. Substitute a cardboard box. No, you can’t take that warm sleeping bag.

And instead of some s’mores, you have water, a sleeve of saltine crackers and an apple for dinner.

Want to go home now?

That’s what 13 youngsters, members of the Robertsdale United Methodist Church Youth Group, experienced Friday and Saturday last weekend. The youngsters camped out in Honeybee Park. Church officials had asked the city council’s permission to hold the event, but swore all to secrecy so the young people would be surprised. The city’s Senior Center provided bathroom facilities.

Eddie Pratt, RUMC’s Youth Minister, came up with the idea.

“I came up with the idea because the economy is going down fast,” explained Pratt. “I wanted the kids to become aware how fortunate we are to have the lives we have. It’s a side of life they don’t get to see.”

Pratt got permission from the youngster’s parents for them to participate in the exercise, and several of Pratt’s family members stopped by see how he and the young people were doing. Once the program was explained to the youth group, they were given the chance to opt out, no questions asked. If they decided to stay, that’s where they’d be for the night.

Pratt says all of them chose to stay.

That didn’t mean there weren't some worried parents.

“And I spotted some parents driving by,” said Pratt. “They wouldn’t stop, but they would drive by real slow, checking on us.”

Pratt also praised the Robertsdale police Department.

“They stopped by, and I think they pulled over four or five cars last night,” said Pratt on Saturday morning.

And on Saturday morning, the youngsters, who stayed up all night talking about their experience, were tired, hungry, and wanted to go home, take long baths and sleep. They didn’t know that their parents were coming for them at 3 p.m. and planned to cook a big breakfast back at the church.

One enterprising student constructed a “frisbee” of sorts cut from cardboard embellished with some duct tape, and had some of his musings on it. “Take up your Cross” was emblazoned on it in large letters.

“I need more duct tape,” said Erin Sanderson as she tried to fix her falling-apart home for the night. The youngsters cannibalized a broken tent somebody had brought, and were using the poles to prop open their boxes.

The 11-year-old Loxley Elementary student added that they youngsters “only had a certain amount of food.”

“It was cold and the house kept coming down,” said Sanderson.

“We were expecting more of a camping trip,” said Kristen Curtis, resident of Silverhill and a freshman at Robertsdale High. “We had to sleep out in the cold without a roof.”

When asked what she wanted to do when she got home, Curtis responded, “Eat, then sleep,” adding that none of the youngsters slept that night.

“We were hungry and freezing,” said Curtis.

“I thought we were going on a real camping trip,’ said Brandon Eubanks of Silverhill, a freshman at the University of South Alabama. “You know, fires, marshmallows and coyotes.”

That changed with the announcement of what the “camping trip” would really entail.

“Everybody was shocked and confused,” Eubanks said. “After six hours, we bonded. You have to survive and do what it takes to live. Homeless folk really are tough.”