This Friday, February 9th, the Regional Office of Education #33 and #26 are hosting a Community Action Poverty Simulation at 932 Harrison Street in Galesburg. Behavioral Health Consultant Jessica Donaldson breaks down the day’s events:
“As the participants arrive, they are given an identity and are placed into a family. What the have to do is work together to be able to make ends meet for a month. Every ten minutes will simulate a week of living in poverty. Each family has a different identity and they are all based on real life scenarios; you might have multi-generations of people that are in your family, you might be a single parent family, you might be a two income family with multiple children, so you have different scenarios, but you still have to do all of the things that we do everyday. You still have to go to work, you have to go to school, you have to pay your bills, and then just as we know life happens and so some unfortunate situations might come up over the course of the month and you have to be able to navigate those. Our goal is really to start the conversation and to continue the conversation so that people are aware of what they can do.”
The Community Action Poverty Simulation is open to the entire public and will be held from 8:30 to 11:30 am this Friday.