Manassas Park students get glimpse of adult life

Manassas Park High School sophomore Lamont Jackson groaned and leaned over the card table.

His make-believe adult life wasn’t going so well. He still had to buy life insurance and health insurance for his child, and he had only $78 to budget for the month.

The 17-year-old’s plight was fairly common as members of the school’s Entrepreneur business classes took part in the third annual Making It Real program for high school students on Tuesday.

Sponsored by Synergy One Federal Credit Union, the three-hour event gave students a sometimes painful view into what it takes to live, work and play in Prince William County. Each student was given a job with a corresponding salary and all but two had children, which were designated by blue or pink beads.

After that, they had to go to the appropriate station where they purchased transportation, food, clothing and other items. To make it even more realistic, no one made more than $60,000 a year.

There was also a booth called Life Happens where water heaters broke and televisions were won.

Making only $17,000 a year as a farmer, sophomore Brendan Settles was forced to sell his car to take care of his 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter.

“Let’s hope I do better in the real world,” laughed Settles, who said he would be forced to apply for a second job to make ends meet.

JoAnne Renton, who manages the Parenting Program for the Virginia Cooperative Extension, was co-managing the childcare table. Renton said many of the teens had to make U-turns after purchasing non-essential items like big screen TVs and cell phones.

“The boys especially were really shocked [at how much everything cost],” Renton said.

Manassas Park teachers Doug West and Jeff Gammill said it took an exercise like this to really open their eyes to the trials and tribulations of the real world.

“We have gone through this in our classes as far as budgeting, as far as cost of insurance,” Gammill said. “... [But] the students didn’t wrap their minds around it until they came here, as far as how much stuff actually costs.”

Synergy One will sponsor another Making It Real event at Freedom High School in Woodbridge on April 25.

Last year, nearly 140 students from Brentsville, Hylton, Osbourn Park and Osbourn high schools attended the event, which was held at the Manassas campus of George Mason University.

“The comment that I hear most often from adults when I talk about this program is ‘I wish I could have gone through something like this,’ ” said event coordinator Janis Yoswa. “This is information that all young adults need to receive before heading out into the real world.”

Staff writer Kipp Hanley can be reached at 703-369-5738.