It’s an outside-the-box idea to put someone inside this box.
That someone is Exordia Media’s Isaac Davey, who is in the middle of spending a week inside a storage container in a fundraising effort to support the Children’s Treatment Centre of Chatham-Kent.
Quentin Solomon, president and co-founder of Exordia, said the concept began to germinate back in the summer when the company took on Portable Storage as a client.
“We were coming up with different ideas. How much could we fit into a container, etc. and then someone had the idea of what if one of us lived in the container for a week, and we had some sort of charity element tied to it,” Solomon said.
Alexx Sewell, an account manager at Exordia who has Portable Storage as a client, agreed.
“We were brainstorming and that was one of the concepts we came up with. It was interesting and definitely good for brand awareness for Portable Storage,” she said.
Mitch Erickson of Portable Storage loved the idea.
“It’s kind of crazy, but we’re excited for it. Happy to help out,” he said. “This is one of the most unique uses we’ve ever seen.”
All they needed was a proverbial guinea pig. Enter Davey, senior video specialist with Exordia and an online content creator in his own right. He quickly volunteered to spend a week living in the container. And documenting it with a 24/7 livestream.
“I like doing stuff like this. I like pushing my limits and doing things under pressure,” he said. “I think it’s a really fun challenge.”
These were Davey’s words prior to stepping inside the container. But once he did, he was subject to strict rules, many of which he placed upon himself.
“I gave myself the rule that I can leave for 10 minutes a day to go to the bathroom,” he said.
As for the other 23 hours and 50 minutes of each day, well, he’s stuck inside his home away from home.
His accoutrements, however, may not be.
The goal is to have the public help remove as many creature comforts Davey initially has inside the container as possible. You can pledge money in support of the Children’s Treatment Centre to have items yanked from the metal confines.
He’ll start with a bed, couch, entertainment options, lighting and even a popcorn maker courtesy of the Children’s Treatment Centre. How he ends is up to you.
“You can take away his lights, take away his bed, take away all of his games,” Sewell said, all by visiting portablestorage.ca/7-days-contained.
“We’re putting a price tag for the majority of things in the container so people can donate towards removing them from the container,” Davey said. “We’re keeping the essentials in there. But if somebody wants to get rid of my couch, they donate a certain amount of money and then I can’t have it for the rest of the week.”
Mike Genge, president and CEO of the Children’s Treatment Centre Foundation, a fan of unique fundraising ideas for years, was happy to be part of canning Davey for a week.
“Exordia came to us and asked if we’d like to be their charity of choice. Of course,” he said. “It’s off the wall. We do things differently.”
But it’s up to the people of Chatham-Kent as to how successful the effort to raise money, and add to Davey’s discomfort, will be. Genge is confident Davey’s confines will be sparse by week’s end, considering it is all for a good cause.
“We have a great community and great businesses in the community,” he said. “All this money will go towards programming; it will all stay here in C-K.”
While Davey will be limited in his outside-the-box time and could lose out on comforts many of us take for granted, he will have support 24/7. Creative lead for Exordia, Riley Smids, is working on site overnight during Davey’s stay in the oversized tin can of a home. He’ll be there for support and security if something were to go awry.
Sewell said other safety measures have been added as well. The container has doors at both ends to ensure Davey has safe exit options, and it is rigged so Davey can lock the doors from the inside, while no one can lock him in.
