Imagine that you are living on $1,000 a month, while working an unstable job.
Do you purchase groceries or pay the electric bill? Do you allow your child to participate in extracurricular activities or make them stay home and sit out because you cannot afford the fees? Do you take a day off to take care of your sick child and risk your job or do you go to work and leave them home alone?
Such difficult scenarios are something students at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford will face today –– in observance of National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. The SPENT simulation, sponsored by the Psychology Club, is slated to take place from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. today in the Frame-Westerberg Commons.
“We, as a club, find it to be important to bring awareness to the seriousness of poverty and its effects on physical, emotional, and mental health,” Psychology Club President Katie Huggler told The Era on Wednesday. “By sponsoring this activity, it gives us a chance to bring awareness to the issue of poverty. It’s important for students and others to participate in because it most often hits participants with a reality check of, ‘Wow, this could be me,’ or it might make them think of someone they know or knew and really makes them rethink how lucky they are to have what they have at this moment.”
The online activity also provides a chance for individuals to reflect and plan, she said.
“Experiencing the simulation makes you see that living through poverty, especially successfully, is not easy at all,” Huggler said. “We hope this makes students work harder in school to get better grades in order to get a better job to support their future, that students are more generous when it comes to donations to people in need, and that students are more understanding of how serious poverty can be and how many people it can affect.”
She said the SPENT simulation takes individuals through various scenarios and questions, depending on the participant’s choice. No matter what the person chooses, the participant is placed under a financial burden, Huggler said.
“The ones who do make it through the month make it with barely and money left and bills piled up,” she said. “The simulation is really good about distributing eye-opening facts and statistics throughout the simulation. Overall, we do this simulation every year to raise awareness to how serious poverty is and how many people it affects.”
Also at Pitt-Bradford, a Poverty Dinner is slated tonight at the Commons building. The event is only open to the campus community.
At the event, participants sit at a table, not knowing what kind of covered meal is in front of them, said Akiré Hoots, president of the African American Student Union. Two options are available: Soup and salad and a full-course meal. She indicated that it is interesting to see the reactions that people have; will individuals share their food or keep it for themselves, she questioned.
The event will also include a speaker from the YWCA Bradford.
A Night Without a Home begins at 9 p.m. Friday at the volleyball court at Kessel Athletic Complex.
Despite the frozen feet and the frozen hands, the event brings people together, Hoots indicated. The community is invited to this event, she said.
Both of those events –– the dinner and A Night Without a Home –– are sponsored by the African-American Student Union.
Also, socks are being collected for the YWCA; organizers are hoping to donate 50 pairs to the agency, Hoots said.
