(Editorial - Graphic Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

Perhaps you’ve heard the expression that being poor is expensive. But either you are or have been in that position and understand exactly what that means, or it is very difficult for you to understand.

Those who organized the Cost of Poverty Experience in Marietta earlier this week did their best to shed some light on what low-income families experience every day.

Participants assigned real family profiles tried to navigate four 15-minute sessions, each representing a week in poverty. Decisions about housing, employment, child care and transportation under tight financial constraints, would have been a challenge to many. Volunteers staffed stations representing employers, social service agencies, banks, schools and other community touchpoints, during the event facilitated by the Family First Council.

No Wrong Door, a collaboration that ensures those in need are directed to the right resources no matter where they start the process, hosted the event with help from GoPacks, a local food-support nonprofit.

“It’s a poverty simulation to let people who may have not experienced poverty before get a peek as to what it really is like day to day — all the tasks we all do, the barriers, the challenges that they face,” said Heather Warner, GoPacks founder.

That is why the program was so useful to organizations such as the Ohio Valley Educational Service Center.

“When I look at the budget, the struggle for me is I know that everything we bring in is not going to cover all of this for the month,” said Joy Edgell, the center’s director of preschool services. “So we were already talking about what are we not going to pay for… what we bring in is not going to cover this.”

Bringing her staff to better understand the reality faced by the families they work with will be an important step in helping the center offer the right support.

“Every day, people make decisions — do they buy food, do they pay rent, do they buy medication?” Warner said. “Hopefully it will be less judgment, more helping, more walking alongside people instead of trying to fix people.”

What a wonderful thing it would be if everyone could participate in a program like COPE. Certainly, if another event is held, participants should be lining up for spots.

But in the meantime, the fact such an exercise is necessary at all should remind many of us how fortunate we are to need to be TAUGHT about the experience of poverty. And we must let that reminder shape our words and deeds through this holiday season and far beyond.