Yay for good people :)

So, I get articles on fair trade and poverty everyday and this one was really neat. Other than reading about the one on Bono holding another U2 concert and spreading his "One" mission, this one stuck out for me.

Realville is not a town, but a poverty simulation exercise created with help from Step Up Savannah's Poverty Reduction Initiative. Within an hour, the exercise took first-grade teacher Cobb and 54 of her Okatie Elementary School co-workers through a month in the life of a low-income family.

The simulation, which took place in the school's gym, involves four 15-minute "weeks," in which each family has to work and provide food, clothing, shelter and transportation for their children.

School administrators thought the poverty simulation would help teachers better understand their students since more than half of the 721 students at Okatie Elementary fall within the poverty line, said Matthew Hunt, a music teacher who helped coordinate the event.

A family of four with an income of less than $18,000 a year is considered to be living in poverty, said Lindsay Trout, Step Up project director assistant.

The simulation was an eye-opener for those portraying people who are struggling to make ends meet while attending to family emergencies such as house break-ins, children on drugs and home foreclosures.

For Westcott, her role of not being able to read was especially hard when applying for food stamps.

"The kids really wanted to do well in school but they couldn't," Montjoy said of "students" whose families were too poor to buy school supplies. "They didn't have the means to."

How neat to see that not only are these people creating the opportunity to walk in others' shoes, but these teachers are slipping on those shoes... getting just a small glimpse of insight into living life on the brink of poverty...