The Wiscott family had $1,846 a month in income but had $1,870 of monthly expenses. The grandmother made $9.50 an hour working 40 hours as a cashier. The grandfather received $500 a month in disabilities. The two raised their 9-year-old granddaughter and their recently diagnosed ADHD 7-year-old grandson because the mother was in jail for drug use and the father could not be found.
This was one of about 10 scenarios TEAMwork for Quality Living implemented in its poverty simulation Monday night, which about 50 people attended.
Simulation facilitator Kyra Hainlen said Ball State University's Student Voluntary Services sponsored the event. She said the Missouri Community Action Agency designed the different scenarios, but they were updated during the summer to account for new poverty numbers and figures.
"It's intended to give people a hands-on look at the realities of poverty," Hainlen said.
During the two and a half hour simulation, each attendee acted as a family in poverty. Simulations included single parents trying to find work while taking care of their children as well as families that have both parents but at least one parent is unemployed. Other families, such as the Wiscotts, had to take care of the kids while one worked, the other had a disability and the children were in grade school, while also being confronted with disabilities.
Elementary education majors Sarah Noel, Kasey Kildall and Kashie Suiter said they attended the simulation for a class but they wanted to better understand how people in poverty lived. They played members of the Wiscott family.
After the simulation, Noel said she thought it was a good experience.
"I didn't realize how easy it is to get evicted and people take advantage of you," she said.
While students participated in the simulation, about 15 volunteers acted as if they were employers, bank tellers, police, mortgage brokers, food vendors and bill collectors. At the end of the poverty simulation those in attendance learned the volunteers were from Muncie or Delaware County and lived in poverty or had experience doing anything they could to get by, even if it meant committing a crime.
Kildall said she thought it was cool people helping with the simulation lived in the situations she had to go through because it helped make the scenarios more real.
Suiter said she was surprised by how much parents had to pay attention to finances, which sometimes caused them to not pay as much attention to their children.
"I feel like they neglect their kids more ... and don't have time for them," she said. "It was eye-opening."
OnlineFor more information about TEAMwork for Quality Living and local programs working to eliminate poverty visit teamworkql.org
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