Heritage High School 10th-graders got a taste of reality this month when they visited the Reality Store, a simulation program in which students got to experience what it’s like to try to balance a monthly budget. This exciting educational experience has been successfully implemented in urban and rural areas across Virginia and was presented at Heritage High School through a partnership with the Cooperative Extension and Lynchburg City Schools. More than 50 volunteers from local businesses and industries helped to make this event possible. During this hands-on experience, students randomly selected a career and family size and were told to assume they were 26 years old. Based on that information they made spending decisions for their household. Booths were set-up to represent spending categories including taxes, home, food, childcare, clothing, transportation, insurance, etc. To make things interesting there was a “Crystal Ball” station where students selected a card, which had a positive or negative effect on their spending plan.
Several 12th-grade students volunteered at the event, including Tyler Molihan, Halley Adcock, Griffin Spencer, Lekiara Watkins, Jessica Lareau, Kelsey Roark, Casey Myers, Eric Morris-Pusey, Tylia Turner, Jamie Pugh, Nicholas Robertson, Nick Comerford and Kaela Parrish.