Reality Store Gives Middle School Students a Taste of the Real World

   About a third of Staunton River Middle School’s eighth graders went bankrupt in April, and the school’s teachers and administrators couldn’t have been happier.
   At least this time, the students were able to learn an important lesson without hurting their credit history at the same time.
   The students were participating in The Reality Store, a program sponsored by the Bedford Business and Professional Women’s Foundation.
   The program is designed to teach students about the realities of life and budgeting and how their choices make an impact — positively and negatively — on their lives.
   With the help of a guidance counselor, the students researched and chose the careers they thought they would have by the time they were 28 years old. Students also had to make life choices such as whether to go to college, get married or have children. Then, on April 30, they entered The Reality Store. Here, they were given a paycheck. The students had to take their paycheck to tables representing the different expenses in life. The first stop was the tax table. Then came housing, insurance, telephone, utilities, etc.
   At each table, volunteers deducted the amount of the “bill” from the student’s paycheck. As the students rotated through the tables, they realized that fancy sports car or seven children might not be good ideas financially.
   The object was to get through the tables without going bankrupt. A successful round meant the students might have enough money left over for recreational items such as movies or trips.
   Not all of the students were so lucky. In fact a third of the 265 students participating went bankrupt and  had to go through the process again.
   “They found out that life is real,” said Linda Zimmerman, a member of the Bedford BPW and nominating chair for the Virginia BPW. “They got to see how hard it is to have enough money for the essential things, much less the luxuries.”
This is the first year Bedford County Schools have been able to offer The Reality Store. Zimmerman and others in the Bedford BPW heard about the program being offered in Galax and visited that city to see how it worked.
   “Originally, this began as an initiative to prevent teen pregnancy,” Zimmerman said, adding that plenty of Staunton River’s students went bankrupt after visiting the childcare table.
   A grant from the BPW and the hospital paid for the program at Staunton River. The Chamber of Commerce and other businesses also provided support. More than 50 volunteers from area businesses turned out to man the tables as well.
   Zimmerman hopes to persuade more businesses to join in next year when the BPW holds The Reality Store again at Staunton River Middle School and also at Bedford Middle School.
   Linwood Roberts, principal of Staunton River Middle School, said the school needs this type of involvement from the community.
   “We had community people in our school, and it created a lot of positive opportunities for them to meet our students,” he said. “The kids talked about it for the rest of the year. It opened their eyes to some real stuff they hadn’t thought about before.”