Take a Walk In My Shoes

Every day, thousands of families across America perform an intricate financial balancing act while trying to make ends meet.

Your child wants to play soccer after school.  You’ve got to do something about that painful tooth. Just 7 days left on your bus pass. Do you, once again, depend on others for a ride to work? Say no to your daughter when all she dreams about is joining the team?  Put off a visit to the dentist and push through the pain that keeps you from concentrating at work?

What if you were forced to decide between picking up a needed prescription and putting food on the table for your kids? Many of us, thankfully, have never had to make these kinds of choices.

We’ve all heard the saying – You don’t know what someone else’s life is like until you take a walk in their shoes.

Well now you can.

Walk In My Shoes is an interactive online experience that depicts real-life scenarios faced by many of the more than 16,000 families living on the financial edge in Anchorage, sometimes one paycheck away from homelessness.

While the reality of living on the brink of financial instability cannot be fully captured in an online activity, going through the decision-making process and seeing the impact on someone with very few choices will be eye opening.

You begin your Walk In My Shoes by choosing one of three people, each facing a different set of circumstances -- Dave, a widowed senior; Amanda, a single mother; James, a 42-year-old father recently disabled. As you follow their path, you will be asked to make tough choices or take a risk because just as in real-life, random events happen.

With limited income, monthly bills and unexpected expenses, your challenge will be to make it to the end of the month without running out of money.

This experience allows our donors to easily and quickly understand the challenges faced by our neighbors and take action to support our work in the community to ensure that all families are financially stable.