The simulation today placed us into the shoes of individuals who, in reality, would need food assistance by relying on food shelves and food stamps. Each person was given a profile with a brief summary of their life and situation. From there you worked with your partner figuring how much money you had to spend for each day (after calculating all that months expenses), what food you could purchase for the small amount of cash you then did have, how many meals you could get for free, and (if you could get the form filled out) if you and your partner qualified for food stamps. Personally, I had emigrated with my husband (who was sitting next to me) from Mexico six years ago. Although both my husband and I had jobs and we had no children, after all the months expenses (including our car breaking down) were factored into our monthly paychecks there wasn’t enough money to buy all the recommended calories for each day.
The situations of the people that we were portraying today reminded me of Gustine in The Dress Lodger. Gustine is an incredibly hard working person. She is doing all she can in her current situation to take care of herself and her child. She works two jobs (one that she refuses to consider herself as) merely to survive. But it just seems as hard as she’s trying, things just keep working against her, she can’t seem to get ahead-that is, at least, until the very end, if you believe the foretelling of the future by the Eye (which you really should because it’s the Eye-it’s all seeing…but anyways…). The people in the simulation today were the same: even though they were working and trying to make ends meet, by the time they factored everything in, they just couldn’t do it. There is a really excellent (and really moving) movie based on a true story that recently came out called The Pursuit of Happiness that correlates very strongly to the simulation today.
I liked the simulation today because it showed the variety of people who need food assistance. Although in some cases their lack of food may have been results of previously bad decisions (obviously there are people who misuse the system) but, at the same time, there are people who really do need assistance due to no fault of their own. One couples’ profile talked about both people having jobs and living a fairly good life until the husband got laid off-then everything then fell apart. I too believe that everyone has the right to eat. People need help to get through bad times. But I also believe that it’s important to fix the situations that are causing people to seek help and to help people help themselves out of their situation, improving their life so it hopefully won’t happen again.
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