Good afternoon,

As you may remember we asked for volunteers for Reality Check in January
for our GEAR UP school in Rossville, Georgia.

The Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce attended the January event and has
decided to replicate this activity in 9th grade classrooms in Hamilton
County Schools and is piloting Reality Check at Central High.  This event
will be Friday, March 28 from 7:15-noon.

We need about thirty volunteers!

Reality check is a simulation exercise designed to give students experience
in paying bills after completing some form of an education (dropping out of
high school, high school grad or college grad).

Students are assigned a career and family scenario. They move through 13
stations and make budget decisions: rent an apartment or buy a house; buy
generic food or name brand food at the grocery; decide which utilities they
can afford (cell phone, cable, etc); transportation-bus tickets or car
payments, etc. Students even have the option of picking up a second job if
they can't make ends meet. The volunteers staff the booths, record the
student's decision and deduct it from their "checking account".

The kids enjoy the change of pace and really get into the scenarios they
have been assigned. They complain about not making enough money (if their
card was a high school dropout, for example) and decide that maybe getting
a college education is pretty important.

If you would like to assist please let me know. We are trying to place 2
volunteers at each of the 13 stations.

This is a great simulation for any youth group middle school-high school,
by the way.

Thank you
Sandy


"Work like you don't need money, Love like you've never been hurt, and Dance
like no one is watching"


Sandy Cole
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Center for Community Career Education (Celebrating 23 years of service in 2003)
615 McCallie Avenue
Chattanooga, TN  37403
(423)425-4475 voice
(423)425-5282 fax
http://cecasun.utc.edu/~careered/