Sleeping for a change
How a shoe repairman from Wayzata serves the community by camping in his front yard.
By Miranda Erbele & Kadrian Chambers| Reporters
Bob Fisher nuzzled himself into his sleeping bag as the Minnesota night drew colder and colder. A 15-degree evening was forecast, and Fisher would be spending it in his bright yellow North Face tent pitched right behind his cozy suburban home. He knew it wouldn’t be easy, and the temptation to abandon ship and shuffle into his warm bed during the night would linger. But Fisher promised himself that he would camp out from 10 PM that night to 5 AM the next morning. He was not going to let himself down.
When 2 AM rolled around, Fisher woke up with a message in his mind so clear it seemed as if it had to be written in bold across his forehead.
“Move the tent to the front yard and do something for the needy people in Wayzata,” Fisher recollected.
When the sun greeted Fisher the next morning, he unzipped himself from his sleeping bag, gathered the materials that had helped him survive the night, and set up camp in the front yard. Thus was born, “The Sleep Out.”
Fisher’s purpose had quickly gone from wanting to dabble in winter camping, to striving to increase awareness about need in his community. From that point on, he dragged himself out to his tent each night in effort to reach a goal of $7,000 to provide warm holiday meals for families that otherwise would go without them.
Each chilly morning that Fisher woke up, he would commute from that bright yellow tent in the front yard to his small business, Bob’s Shoe Repair. While Fisher would mend soles of shoes, he spoke about the soul’s of community members that also needed to be cared for. Soon, Fisher had a fan club that was more than willing to donate funds to Fisher’s Sleep Out fund.
Through the help of many of Fisher’s family, friends and customers, Fisher reached his goal within about two weeks. After raising the money, Fisher trudged through the snow to personally deliver the funds to InterfaithOutreach, a nonprofit organization located in Plymouth, Minnesota that has been helping families with education, housing, employment and transportation services since 1982. Upon arrival, Ladonna Hoy, the woman behind the creation of Interfaith Outreach, asked Fisher to do it again next year. But this time, not just to raise money for food. But, to raise money and awareness for other problems in the community, such as homelessness.
“I said ‘Sure,’ I wasn’t really that nuts about sleeping in the tent anymore, but I did,” Fisher said.
One bright Sunday morning while Bob was speaking at a local church to share about the Sleep Out, he was approached by the Minnesota Twins third baseman, Corey Koskie. Soon, Koskie was enduring the bitter cold a few evenings each winter with Fisher.
Fisher recalled one particularly cold night where Koskie asked if he could bring some friends to join, to which Fisher responded, “Yes!” A couple hours later, Koskie’s teammate, Joe Mauer, and his two brothers, Billy and Jake, were knocking on Fisher’s door, ready for their sleepout at a chilling temperature of 9.9 below zero.
Youth in the community started to have Sleep Outs of their own, visiting Fisher’s home and joining him for the evening. Occasionally, Fisher took a vacation from his trusty North Face Tent, and joined others at their homes for a Sleep Out. He once joined the Holy Name Catholic Church sixth graders for their adventures. Invited to Sleep Out with them for a fundraiser they were having, these enthusiastic sixth graders wanted to present Fisher with the funds raised that evening.
Fisher was prepared for a small, but nonetheless important donation. He could not have been more wrong. The giddy students invited him to the stage and as he walked on, they placed in his hands a check the size of a large dining table… made out for $30,000.
With a lump in his throat and tears in his eyes, Fisher returned home after 3 nights away feeling extremely grateful for the efforts those around him put forth to take care of each other. As he made the familiar commute to his own tent that night, a sense of peace fell over him.
“Wow it’s good to be home,” Fisher said.
Fisher pitched his tent and slept out in the rough temperatures of the Minnesota winter for 270 nights over 11 years before retiring.
“I drive around and it feels like I tuck my community in. I get goosebumps when I see the tents all over the place.”–Bob Fisher, founder
“Now we have involved thousands and thousands of people and have been preventing homelessness in the Twin Cities for 25 years,” Fisher said. “It’s just been amazing. It was all because God said ‘Go do this.’ I did that, and when God says something it’s a lot easier to do it because he’s making it happen. All I had to do was sleep through it,” Fisher said.
People in the Wayzata community, and now throughout the country, continue to sleep out because of the decision that Fisher made to try winter camping, and his faithfulness to follow the call God gave him that night to move his tent to the front yard. After a grand total of about 9 months of sleeping out, Fisher now simply drives past the tents in his community with a smile on his face and gratitude for all that the Sleep Out has become.
“I drive around and it feels like I tuck my community in,” Fisher said. “I get goosebumps when I see the tents all over the place.”
