Vermillion residents participate in ‘poverty escape room’

VERMILLION, S.D. (KCAU) – Clay County has the highest level of poverty of any county without a reservation in South Dakota, and on Thursday, a few members of the community learned what it’s like to live under the line.

“it’s not just the financial part, right? There’s so many more components that you need to keep straight,” participant and Clay County resident Julia Hellwege said. “All the while everything is falling apart.”

Clay County residents got to experience the harsh realities of those who live in the poverty crisis with an interactive escape room hosted by Vermillion United Way.

“A day in the life of somebody experiencing that crisis,” said escape room learning specialist with the Community and Family Services Division of Black Hills Special Services Cooperative Angie Lynch. “And they have to navigate all of the appointments, and the resources that they need with very little resources. Very little money, very little gas to get places.”

In just 25 minutes, participants were presented with different overwhelming scenarios that 12% of Americans live through every day.

“You have to feel it to believe it and understand it,” Lynch said. “So when you feel the stress and anxiety of trying to navigate all the obstacles that are in your way, then you understand a little bit of what it might be like to live that life.”

“A lot of people realized just how much information you need to keep straight in your head, and it was just exhausting just to remember ‘do I have my ID with me, do I have my piece of mail with me, have I gone at the right time to this location, what time is my appointment?’” Hellwege said. “It’s just so overwhelming.”

Although no one successfully completed the simulation, everyone walked away with a new view on the burdens many individuals face.

“It makes me feel proud to be part of the community knowing that all these community members are using this time to learn more about people who are in low income situations, poverty situations, to just be aware of what it’s like to be in that situation,” participant and USD student Parish Cabanas.

“Everyone just felt like ‘wow, we need to do better and there needs to be more systematic approaches,’” Hellwege said. “I felt there’s more that we can do at a systems level rather than just trying to help individual people.”

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