I had the opportunity to volunteer at the local Jr. High with the YMCA to participate in an event called Reality Town. It is a really neat experience where the students are assigned a life situation and an income, and they have to go to different booths and purchase essentials like a home, and automobile, car insurance and health insurance. They have expenses for however many children they are assigned and have costs for groceries etc. I think it helps teenagers recognize how much it takes to run a household, even if it is for a brief moment. I worked the car insurance table. It was a really fun time!
Some of my favorite moments were:
- We had to send an individual away because there was not enough money left for car insurance. Why? Because he had spent 1400.00 of his monthly budget on groceries.
- We had a young person return to our table because they had to trade in their BMW for a more sensible car, because they did not have enough money in the budget.
- Many of the students came to our table before they purchased a car, and seemed miffed that they could not purchase insurance without an automobile.
- How upset the students would get if they were assigned traffic tickets, that their auto insurance rates went up.
I am grateful for the opportunity I had to help out, and hopefully can participate again next year!
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