The Poverty Simulation Event, despite a lower-than-expected turnout, had a meaningful impact said the students who participated.
Organized by Joan Horgan, the director of Spiritual Life and Interfaith Initiatives, she said the turnout was a little under 40 participants. “In an ideal world there are about 60 people involved, which is important in creating the sense of the intensity of it. So, we had a good amount lower than that, and in some ways, I felt that some parts of the experience that are kind of important weren’t able to manifest,” she said.
Horgan said the lack of students participating in such services is a problem they are trying to tackle. “In truth we’re struggling to find students here willing to volunteer right now in any situation. When we’re putting out volunteer requests, we’re not getting students volunteering for the most part. We’re struggling ourselves to figure out what’s going on here, what’s the difference between students caring about something, and doing something about it?”
However, their goals and impact on students that have volunteered carry a lot of weight. Unlike sitting and listening to lectures, in the poverty simulation, students got inside the life of somebody that is living in poverty. “It also provides multiple stories; we may have a situation where we experienced it but might not experience what someone else did or may not have had some of the resources that some folks may have available to them now, or even the complexity of finding the resources; where are they, how do I learn about them?” Horgan said.
“A main goal is to widen our compassion, we can have a lot of judgments about people, and especially lots of times political judgments, which really land hard on the people that are struggling the most,” Horgan said.
Based on the students’ experiences and feedback, the simulation was a success as it was meaningful, and as Horgan said, “they seemed to definitely appreciate what they were doing and why.”
The Poverty Simulation is one annual event out of several that the Interfaith Sanctuary hosts. Other projects such as the annual mac and cheese contest benefit places like Interfaith Partnership for the Homeless (IPH), and traditionally over spring or winter break, student volunteers go on a trip to someplace such as Washington, DC, San Francisco, or New Orleans to work with some organizations that deal with those living in poverty.
However, for this year, Horgan said, “we are going to do a ‘staycation’ so we’re going to have that happen here in Albany with our local Habitat for Humanity, and then with IPH to be able to do some ongoing connection with them. If we get to work with Habitat, it’s five days building a house, so you really get to see what’s going on here. If we’re going to IPH, who are the folks that come in, what are some of the other needs, what are some of the other programs; and so that group gets to bond together, but also gets to know some of the folks that live on the streets in Albany.”
The broader goal of all these projects is to cultivate a bigger network of students who see service as an important part of their college years, but with the lack of student volunteers, Horgan said, “I don’t know what we need to do at this moment in time to bridge that divide between people’s hearts and their actions.” So, if you are interested in making a difference to real people in our community, you are encouraged to pitch in at Saint Rose’s Spiritual Life and Interfaith Initiatives.
