Finding and paying for child care was one challenge facing participants in a poverty simulation exercise during the It Begins With Us conference on Monday. Playing the role of a teen looking for a babysitting job, Jessica Petersen (at center) offered a possible child care opportunity for two other participants.

MARSHALL — For one afternoon, the crowd gathered at the Southwest Minnesota State University conference center were stepping into other people’s shoes.

Each person in the room was assigned the role of a family member in a fictional town. Using limited amounts of tokens standing for resources like money and transportation, families had to try to find work, go to school, survive and pay bills.

It wasn’t easy.

“There’s not enough time to do what we need to do. The lines are long,” said Danielle Murdoff.

Even trying to strategize didn’t work for everyone. “It’s all adding up in my mind like, ‘Please work, please work,'” said Dan DeBates. “It’s not going well.”

The poverty simulation was one of the sessions held as part of the It Begins With Us conference in Marshall on Monday.

“It’s an opportunity for us to learn,” said Debi Brandt, executive director of United Community Action Partnership. The exercise was designed to show the kinds of hard choices low-income families may face, Brandt told participants.

The It Begins With Us conference continues today, with sessions covering topics including Native American boarding schools, and community diversity.

It Begins With Us started out as the Cultures On the Prairie conference, said See Moua-Leske, a member of the conference committee.

“We changed it because we got a lot of people who were reaching out to use about doing something similar in their towns,” Moua-Leske said. The conference’s new name is one that can apply to every community. Positive change also starts with the people who live in a community, she said.

Moua-Leske said several different sponsors helped make this year’s conference possible, including UCAP, a Statewide Health Improvement Partnership grant through Southwest Health and Human Services, the Southwest Initiative Foundation, the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council, the city of Marshall’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion commission, Lozinski Construction and Visit Marshall.

This year, about 140 people had pre-registered for the conference, Moua-Leske said. A group of about 80 people were taking part in Monday’s poverty simulation.

The simulation was set up to represent the fictional town of Realsville. Participants playing the roles of family members of all ages would travel from their homes to tables around the room representing everything from schools and employers, to social services offices and a payday loan business.

“You need to be as realistic as possible about the roles you’ve been given,” Brandt said.

Transportation was a major hurdle facing many families in the simulation. No one could go to work or visit community resources without “buying” passcards representing transportation. A line quickly formed in front of the payday lender table – but several people were left standing when the business closed for the weekend.

As the simulation went on, people got more rushed and frantic.

“I have one week to pay all the utilities,” one participant said.

Ben Murphy, who was playing the role of a child in one family, said it was stressful not being able to help out more. At the same time, he was impressed seeing the teamwork of his group – “Just watching the parents, and how much they have to plan.”

Brandt said exercises like the poverty simulation typically bring up a lot of different emotions for the people taking part.

“When we go through a debrief, it’s all over the road,” she said of people’s reactions. She hoped the experience would get people thinking about how to make a positive change for others. “We challenge people to think about they systems they have in their own organizations,” or even just reach out to neighbors, she said.