By Isaac Fox ‘24, guest writer

As a senior in college, Emily Long stood in her elementary school cafeteria, watching the people who taught her childhood self English and math sprint from table to table.

They formed make-believe families and exchanged make-believe money, but there was nothing make-believe about their frustration and franticness. They were struggling through a poverty simulator, and she was leading it. For the moment, she taught, and they learned.

“It’s kind of funny,” she said. “But then you’re like, this was actually hard, and if this was not a single 45-minute-or-whatever period of my life…. And some of them were like, ‘Yes, I’m a teacher—a teacher, within this district, who lives on the borderline of poverty, and this is just a lot.’ So I hope there were a lot of realizations like what I had, that this is a reality for people who probably live next door or in my neighborhood.”

Emily’s own realization came while volunteering in the healthcare field. Working with Habitat for Humanity and the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center in Lebanon, she has encountered people with life stories completely different from her own, even in areas barely outside her hometown. Some face medical “death sentences” because of factors like class or immigration status. One woman who Emily met had struggled with addiction and homelessness her whole life and was in hospice at age 50.

Talking to people in such desperate circumstances is never easy.

“It’ll test you,” Emily said.

It’s emotionally difficult work, but it’s also a cultural shift that can force anyone to confront their own ideas. Emily believes that everyone deserves healthcare, no matter why they need it. In some roles, she’s met people who society blames for their problems, and she’s had to remind herself of her values.

“I think that drug addiction is a mental health condition, and I don’t think that it’s a personal failing,” she said. “But it is one of those moments where you say, ‘Okay, in this room somebody has cancer, and in this room somebody has drug addiction, and they feel like they should be two different things. And you have to reaffirm that, ‘Listen, I think that everyone gets healthcare.’”