Reality Fair hits home with students
By Angela Greiner Community Reporter

Hudson - "Will I buy a flat-screen television or weekly groceries?" This is one of the questions that 10th-grade students were asking themselves April 16 at Hudson High School's annual "Reality Fair."

The Reality Fair is an opportunity for students to attempt to set up life on play money from a one-month paycheck. During the event, students with calculators in hand meet with realtors to rent or buy houses, visit a car dealer to choose from a Ford or Lincoln, and buy gadgets from Best Buy. The students, in their morning travels through life, also get to pay for all of the not-sofun monthly necessities like car insurance, cable, electricity, phone and food.

Gail Lamere, school to career counselor at the school, explained that the goal of the event is for students to understand the correlation between education and earnings. Prior to the fair, students are involved in several preliminary research projects investigating and choosing potential future careers.

The day of the Reality Fair, students are then matched up with these careers and given an estimated salary for their choice.

"They move through the event and set up a life," Lamere said. "Hopefully they learn that the decisions they make aff ect their ability to live within their means."

Tenth-grade student T.J. Provenca, who was at the car dealership buying a Cadillac Escalade for $573 a month, explained that he was a coach earning $3,726 a month. Provenca had yet to purchase or rent a house when he evaluated his cash supply, which was quickly disappearing after he paid for his luxury vehicle.

"I might have to live in this car," Provenca said.

Real estate broker Dan Weave, who has participated in the event for the past few years, displayed several houses for students to purchase or rent in every budget from Curt Shilling's $8 million home to a $186,000 house in Hudson.

"We experience people regularly in real life who realize that they cannot afford to buy a house," Weave said. "This gives us an opportunity to give the students a little taste of reality."

Weave was particularly supportive of the event because he felt it gave students who might have been less focused an opportunity to turn it around.

"This is an eye-opener for students," Weave said.

Lamere echoed Weave's opinion.

"I love this age. We will get at least 90 percent of the 218 sophomores to attend and they are really getting into it," she said. "By hosting this for 10thgrade students, it gives us two more years to continue to layer financial literacy on them."

Ryan Donohue, a representative from Best Buy, had several students at all times flocked around the latest cell phones and flat-screen television on display. He admitted for many of the students his table was the first stop.

"We are the temptation table," Donohue said. "Electrical goods are great, but we hope to show students that they need to prioritize their bills first."

Donohue was proud of a couple of students who pursued ideas like setting up a twoyear 0 percent credit line, and other students who returned goods that they later realized they could not aff ord.

Katelyn Andrews attended the event last year as a tenthgrader and was helping to run this year's "Wheel of Fortune," which added a little chance into the mix, like getting a tax refund, being issued a speeding ticket or having to pay a medical expense.

"I took this really seriously last year and it helped put things into perspective," she said.

Lamere was impressed with the students' enthusiasm and involvement and was thankful to all of the local businesspeople who volunteered their time. She was also grateful to St. Mary's Credit Union, Digital Credit Union and Avidia for sponsoring the event.