E. C. Glass High School Seniors participated in the Reality Store, a financial program hosted by the Lynchburg office of Virginia Cooperative Extension, in September.
During this hands on experience students randomly selected a career and family size and were told to assume they were 26 years old. Then, based on that information, they made spending decisions for their households. Booths were set-up around the gym to represent spending categories including taxes, home, food, childcare, clothing, transportation, insurance, health and medical, etc. To make things interesting there was a crystal ball from which they had to select a card– the card may have had a positive or negative effect on their spending plan.
The Hilltopper Credit Union, a branch of Central Virginia Credit Union, Kohl’s, and several volunteers from Virginia Cooperative Extension made up the group of dedicated individuals that helped to make this simulation a success.