Dave Bezusko, standing, executive director for the United Way of Logan County, goes over what attendees can expect during the Cost of Poverty Experience at Benjamin Logan High School on Friday, Sept. 1. (EXAMINER PHOTO | SHARYN KOPF)
Elementary and high school teachers at Benjamin Logan Local Schools got a taste of what it’s like to deal with poverty-related issues during their in-service day on Friday afternoon, Sept. 1.
Known as the Cost of Poverty Experience, or COPE, the one-hour simulation put the staff members in specific roles within poverty-level family groups. From a single mother who lands in jail, leaving her 11-year-old son abandoned until he ends up in foster care, to an ex-con trying to get a job, participants discovered it didn’t take long to feel “stressed and frustrated.”
Presented by the United Way, the experience was divided into four 15-minute intervals, each standing for one week, totaling a month in the life. Volunteers took up stations around the room, which represented various community services such as school, jail, a social services office and a minimum wage employer.
Every participant received a name, age, their goals and the different obstacles along the way. They dealt with everything from limited education and homelessness to drug dealers and prostitution.
Dave Bezusko, executive director for the United Way of Logan County, served as the facilitator for the event. He began by stating the federal poverty rate for a family of four is an income of $30,000 a year or less. And 10 percent of the Logan County population lives at or below that level.
Not only that, but the cost for self-sufficiency here sits closer to the $50,000 range. That hits one in four households.
And because people “in the system” are often seen as a number, that’s how they’re treated in the COPE simulation. In the process of this short experience, the point became clear.
“Every person has dignity as a human being,” Bezusko told the teachers. “Yet how many living in poverty feel their dignity has been stripped?”
In leaving the experience, participants agreed it gave them a new level of understanding and empathy for the students and parents dealing with the realities of poverty.
Bezusko concluded with these thoughts from those who are a part of the poverty system:
“I wish people didn’t make assumptions about my capabilities.”
“I’m used to walking with the weight of the world on my back.”
“I wish we had less programs and more people to walk alongside me.”
“We need each other.”
To find out more about the United Way of Logan County, visit their website at uwlogan.org.
School begins for Benjamin Logan students on Tuesday, Sept. 5.