Shortly after participants in Tuesday's Understanding Poverty workshop finished dinner - turkey, roast beef, green beans, rolls and sugar cookies for dessert - they learned this: a number of people in Arlington would not be eating quite as well that evening.

Nor would some of them return to a home with heat or air conditioning or water or lights that turn on with the flip of a switch.

This being Arlington Urban Ministries (AUM) first immersive workshop on poverty, expectations were somewhat tempered, but judging by the dozens of people who showed up at Trinity United Methodist Church, the objectives of educating the community to better understand the frustrations families living in poverty face were realized.

"We're looking at this simulation twofold," said AUM Executive Director Joan Church. "To bring greater awareness and understanding to the fears and frustrations that families in poverty experience every day. The second is to bring greater awareness to Arlington Urban Ministries as a nonprofit that is helping that population."

In order to achieve this, participants assumed the role of low-income families with limited resources (25-year-old mother of two making minimum wage, 42-year-old unemployed man with four kids and a wife who works part time) asked to accomplish everyday tasks. Getting to work. Paying the utility bill. Eating. The simulation experience was to survive a month but do so on meager income, with each 15 minutes representing a week.

At first, survival seemed merely a matter of financial belt-tightening until the participants began to run into an array of barriers. Decision to pay one bill over another. Late fees. Car trouble. No transportation means no work, which means no pay, which means a possible firing.

They roamed from table to table which represented utility companies, social services agencies, child protective services, banks, police stations and homeless shelters. After being challenged with different real-life scenarios, lives began to unravel. Some ended up on the street, others went to jail, and those who got through the month were unsure what the next one would bring.

"This is real for a lot of people," said City Council Member Lana Wolff, the event's honorary chairwoman. "People right here in Arlington are living like this every single day."

Participant Andrew Piel said the exercise "made me look at life in a different way. Just walking in a grocery store and going down the list my wife gave me, buying it and leaving the store.

"Somebody under more financial stress will have to make 30, 40 decisions on what they can or cannot buy. It's clear to me that you'd be emotionally exhausted by the end of the day."

That's exactly how Church wanted the participants to feel.

"I just hope they leave with a sense that we do have low-income families in Arlington and how they can be sensitive and passionately help them," she said. "We see this as a call to action."