A single mother tries to hold down her job and feed her children, but she worries she'll lose the house.

A father desperately tries to provide for his family, but becomes so frustrated he buys a gun and holds up the local Quick Cash.

These were just a few of the scenarios played out at a poverty simulation Thursday evening. The event was put on by the Norman Justice Alliance, a group of Normanites from many social service and religious organizations.

The group hosted the poverty simulation so Norman residents would be bolstered into action, to realize that poverty is real.

"Families are struggling every day to make ends meet," said Linda Terrell, executive director of the Center for Children and Families, a social services agency in Norman. As an illustration, she said nearly 40 percent of Norman children come from families who are struggling enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches at school.

About 100 people came to the poverty simulation at McFarlin Memorial United Methodist Church to experience for a night what it feels like to be in poverty. Each participant was given a role they acted out for an hour. The hour was broken up into 15-minute "weeks," in which the toddlers had to go to day care, the kids to school and the parents to work.

Stations set up around the room acted as businesses and social services, such as the day care, Super Mart, Quick Cash, bank, mortgage company and DHS.

Police officers walked around and threw teenagers in jail for selling drugs or placed unsupervised toddlers in custody.

Kathy King played the part of a single mother in a middle-class neighborhood. She had a job, but struggled to pay her bills, which were due nearly every week to rude utilities clerks.

"I was in panic mode the whole time," she said. And in that frame of mind, she did things she never would have done otherwise. She said she got ripped off by a payday loan company because she didn't know there was another option and she needed cash right away.

Nearly everyone participating in the simulation afterward expressed the frustration and anxiety they felt.

"Constant mess" is how Tom Schott described it.

"I spent the week in constant anxiety," he said.

He became so desperate that by the end of the hour he was doing something he never imagined -- he bought a gun from the pawn shop and held up the clerks at the Quick Cash.

"I finally got to the end of it and was just like, the easiest thing to do is just steal," said Schott, a deacon at St. Thomas More Catholic Church.