001here today. Hi, I'm Sarah Mixes. I'm the student council president. And today we are hosting our annual reality fair, which is like a financial literacy fair for all of our graduating seniors to kind of get a sense of what living in the real world would be like and making those kind of financial decisions. So, we have a ton of different booths. I think we have about 17 and they go into things like personal savings, housing, insurance. I'm Daniel Vetstein. We're here today with Dr. Kyra. How are you, Daniel? I'm doing great. How about you? I'm doing wonderful, thank you. So, what goes into planning for an event like the reality fair? So, uh this is all the the dream of Mr. Wixer. So, Mr. Wixer and uh Sarah Mix has put this together. They contact
002a lot of different folks who can volunteer from throughout the community and throughout different businesses. and the students are able to come and experience what life is going to be like once they graduate from college or or begin the workforce right out of high school. Uh but the planning that goes into it is is hours upon hours by Mr. Wixer and uh and Sarah organizing the volunteers uh making sure that everybody has all the paperwork they need. Uh so I can't take any credit for that and I'm not sure exactly what goes into it, but I know Mr. Wixer and Sarah work really hard to make this day happen. Yeah, it seems like they did an incredible job today. Hats off to them. What was your role in this today? I saw you were doing
003something else. So today, uh, I take the opportunity to just talk to all of our students who come in. I have I am going to be reading names at graduation. This gives me a chance to touch base with every single one of our graduating seniors to make sure we get the perfect pronunciation of their last names when they walk. Um, and when I'm not doing that, I'm just helping them get set up with their budget sheet to make sure they understand uh that what they're making for their annual salary is not actually what you're taking home. So, we talked to them a little bit about their credit score as well, and then we talked to students about how their take-home salary looks a little bit different uh after taxes are taken out. All right. Well,
004thank you, Dr. Cairo. We're going to get a student perspective on this, but thank you so much, Daniel. Thank you. I hope you had a good time. Hope you enjoyed and learned something about what's going to happen in the future. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. So, we're here with Representative Lewis who represents Ashlin and Framingham. What is some of the biggest advice that you're giving to students today? So, if you are a US citizen and are eligible to register to vote, the most important thing you can do today is to register to vote. If you're 16 and 17, you can pre-register and then when you turn 18, you're automatically a registered voter. uh and that's the first step to really getting involved uh in the political process in in civic engagement. Unfortunately, not everyone votes, but
005a lot of decisions are made at the ballot box who represents you. Uh but also when towns like Ashlin get to invest in new schools, it's often decided at the ballot box, and if you're not registered, you can't vote. All right. Thank you so much. And what other ways do you think that people in the community can get involved other than voting? So there are committees at the town level that are always eager to have new folks join them. A lot of volunteers who've been doing the important work for couple years in some cases a couple decades who are eager to continue doing it. But all of them are always ready for new folks to join. Bring some new perspectives. Uh for folks who are going off to college or working elsewhere, uh they can
006get involved in their communities there as well. be it a student group that does advocacy work uh or get involved in campaigns. My first civic engagement was volunteering for political campaigns. I did that in high school and then college and it gave me an opportunity to to learn advocacy uh but also learn how the electoral process works. All right. Now, we're here with a fellow senior, Spencer Leland. Spencer, how you doing today? I'm doing well. How are you, Daniel? I'm doing great. Spencer, what career path did you choose for the reality fair? I'm going to be a high school math teacher. And how did that turn out for you today? I had a surprisingly high salary and I ended up with a little over $800 left at the end of the month. So, it's a
007bit of a reality check as in the name of what can happen and some of the crazy things that are unexpected. Were there any unexpected things that happened to you today? Well, uh, I got a tax refund and that was pretty nice. Um, but I didn't expect to spend as much on food as I ended up spending. I really I really blew through almost half,000 and uh that was a bit bit shocking, but overall I think it went about as well as I could have hoped. How much of that money saving went into thrifting? If you did any thrifting when it came to getting uh clothes and also um furniture for your house and where did you choose to live? Well, definitely a lot of my money went into thrifting, secondhand stores, you know, the
008cheaper options as you know, math teachers don't make as much as they probably should. Teachers deserve more money. Come on. Um, but I ended up living in a two-bedroom apartment in Milford with a roommate that is yet to be determined, but um, overall a lot of secondhand cheaper options for for my uh, poor lifestyle. Well, that's very interesting. So, overall, you said you had a good experience with the reality fair today. Oh, definitely. It was a huge wakeup call. I definitely learned a lot today and it I feel I do feel better prepared for going into the world than than I did before I came. Just want to make sure. All right. Well, that's a student's take on the reality fair. Thank you so much, Spencer Leland. Thanks for having me. Yes. Hello. And who
009are we here with today? Hi, I'm Yolanda Greavves. I am on the select board here in Ashland. I've been in on the board 13 years now. Right. Amazing. And what is the best way you think for regular people to get involved in like civic engagement and with their community? I think one of the best ways, especially as young people, is to be make sure you're registered to vote and then if you are registered to vote to actually get out and vote. A lot of times people register themselves to vote and either they get busy or they're not paying attention and they don't get part participate in the local elections. Here in Ashland, we had a local election about 3 weeks ago. We have about 11,000 registered voters and about 600 people came out. uh we
010only had one or two contested races where it means that there were more people running than for the seats available. So it was a little for people they didn't think it was as important. But the local election and what you vote on here for select board and planning board and school committee really impacts you a lot because your school committee is what's determining what's going on in your schools and they help determine your budget. Same with your select board. They determine policies and procedures that are being voted on and how the town is being run as well as projects that we work on here in town is all done at that local level at that local level. And then at the next level up, you'd have someone like Jack Lewis who is our uh state
011rep. Great. Amazing. And what's some of your biggest advice that you're giving here today at your group? The big thing we're talking to students about is making sure if they're eligible, so US citizen and are 18 to make sure you are registered to vote. Also, if you're 16 or 17, you can prevote. You can pre-register so that when you become 18, then you are already registered to vote. The other thing we're talking about is if they're going away to school or if they're going off to the military that they can still vote here in Ashlin by requesting a mailin ballot as uh different elections come up whether they're local or state or federal. All right. Thank you so much. Very welcome.