The Reality Store program is a great experience for 8^th graders in Edmonson County to gain knowledge, skills, and confidence in financial literacy. With the partnership of Edmonson County 4-H, Edmonson County Schools Youth Service Center, and the Edmonson County School district, the Reality Store program was administered to 125 8^th grade students. An article published on youth.gov stated that “a survey of 15-year-olds in the United States found that 18 percent of respondents did not learn fundamental financial skills that are often applied in everyday situations, such as building a simple budget, comparison shopping, and understanding an invoice.”  

Prior to their time in the Reality Store, youth spent time in class preparing by receiving their career, family size, what to expect, how to fill out their booklet aka budget their income, and which booths were their "needs" and had to be visited first, vs their "wants" which could be visited after if they had income remaining.   During the Reality Store program, students had the opportunity to experience the Real World which included depositing their monthly earnings, paying a monthly car payment, making a house payment, paying rent, buying groceries, paying for childcare, and additional necessary monthly expenses. The Reality Store program is a great opportunity for students to understand the real meaning of needs versus wants and all of the choices that must be made when planning and budgeting. Many youth realized quickly that a second job or a lack of anything other than the basics was necessary to survive on their budgeted income.

Another great aspect of the Reality Store for our county, is this gives our youth the opportunity to interact with individuals that they might actually encounter in their community when it comes time for them to need these services.  We work very hard to find volunteers that work in the areas for each booth that can have meaningful conversations with students and become familiar faces to them.  Our community leaders and business members are always willing to volunteer in our programs for youth.  For Reality Store this year, we had almost 20 volunteers from the community representing their respective areas.

The impact by the reality store during and after it's completion was obvious to many volunteers and facilitators prior to the evaluations.  One youth said, "I had no idea my parents had to pay all of this stuff with not much money".  Reality Store is a meaningful and hands on tool for youth to show them the impact of financial decisions. Looking at the results from the program, most of the students that participated increased their knowledge about making wise financial choices. The results from the evaluation also demonstrated that the students now understand that their grades in school can affect their career and salary in the future.