Leaders, students come together for poverty simulation
JACKSON, Tenn. – Leadership Jackson’s Class of 2023, local educators with the West Teach program, and student leaders from Freed-Hardeman University gathered together to participate in a poverty simulation.
The goal was to learn about the struggles that come with living around the poverty line.
“For people unfamiliar with a poverty simulation, it’s designed to put the attendees in a situation of being stressed out, of not being sure where their next meal is coming from, of not being sure where their next paycheck is coming from, of living paycheck to paycheck. So the goal here is that people start to learn that 37 million Americans are on some sort of poverty every single year,” said Margaret Livingston, the Leadership Jackson Chair.
Kris Kelley, the Vice Chair of Leadership Jackson, talked about the resources available around our community and how this simulation provides the opportunity to learn to not take for granted what we have and help connect people with the available resources that can help.
“The struggles are here within us locally. There’s so many people that we take for granted. We get in our vehicles in the morning and come here, we go get gas, we eat, we feed our kids, we go to school, we don’t think about a lot of those things. But there’s so many struggles that people in our community have to deal with. This is an opportunity for everybody in our community to be grounded,” Kelley said.
The simulation was not just focusing on families that are below the poverty line. It also included situations where families are struggling and could fall below the poverty line at any moment.
“So many residents of Jackson, they’re two paychecks away from hitting that line. It’s one injury away, it’s one sickness away. You’re so close and they’re so many people that don’t see that. Hopefully they do not have to, but hopefully it raises that awareness,” Kelley said.
All attendees were assigned different roles in different families to carry out the simulation.
Following the simulation, the attendees went to Liberty Technology Magnet High School to learn about models for success.
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