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WILKES-BARRE — About 100 people participated in a poverty simulation exercise the United Way of Wyoming Valley hoped would be “eye-opening, as well as heart-opening.”
Those were the words of United Way President/CEO Bill Jones, who began the three-hour exercise at the Wilkes-Barre CYC with alarming statistics.
• There are 11,500 children — nearly one out of three — living in poverty in Wyoming Valley.
• 1 in 4 may not consistently have enough food to eat.
• Far too many struggle in school, or live in fear of abuse or neglect, or, as Jones said, worst of all, live without hope.
“Today might just be a simulation,” Jones said. “But the struggles of area children and families are real.”
Ivy Reynolds, assistant director of professional development at Community Services for Children in Allentown — a firm hired by the United Way — said the poverty simulation exercise is designed to help participants understand what it’s like to live in a typical low-income family trying to survive month-to-month.
“We hope to sensitize people to what those families go through on a day-to-day basis,” Reynolds said. “Many people don’t recognize or appreciate the struggles of low-income families. And they are not even the lowest of the low income families in our community.”
For the exercise, some of the families represented newly unemployed people, some are recently deserted by the “breadwinner,” some are homeless and others represent needy families who receive government assistance. Reynolds said others represented Thursday were senior citizens and grandparents raising grandchildren.
As the simulated families go through four 15-minute “weeks,” they face dilemmas with finances and services while other volunteer simulators play the roles of bankers, employers, store owners, school officials, churches, social services agencies, utility companies, mortgage companies and child care centers, as well as law enforcement.
At the end of the simulation, all participated in a discussion of their experiences and shared the stories of their simulated struggles.
Jones told the participants they would have to make difficult choices during the simulation.
“We hope you get a glimpse of the hectic, challenging lives of families living in poverty and how expensive it really is to be poor,” Jones said. “We hope you are able to reflect on the life of your character and try to understand what’s happening with them.”
Jones said the United Way began its Poverty to Possibility campaign two years ago, concentrating on the issues facing families and their children.
The simulation was held during the “Week of the Young Child,” Jones said. Participants in the simulation tackled the role of a family member facing a variety of challenging, but typical, circumstances from homelessness, job loss and poverty with a shortage of money and an abundance of stress.
“It is our sincere hope that lives will change one life at a time,” Jones said.
