Play ball! Financial education home runs

And and enhance financial literacy in communities. And so I'm really delighted to welcome Michelle A Thornhill who is head of Community Relations at Citi Community Investing and Development to the podcast. Hi Michelle. Michelle A. Thornhill: Hi Evan. Thanks for having me. And we're also delighted to have Bashan Fernandez. He's Chief Program Officer at Roads to Success in New York City. Bashan, welcome to the show.

And this is a program, a resource that's open to all banks to get financial education lessons. We are, we have. Revamped a lot of these lessons rewritten. A lot of them brought them up to date because, you know, as you know the way that kids engage with money and save today is a lot different from the way it was in 1997 or even 2017. So we are really, so we, so it's, so we keep these lessons fresh at the ABA foundation.

And Michelle, we appreciate your leadership in helping the ABA foundation to to deliver great results and great resources for bankers of all sizes. Thank you. So I wa I'd love it. I'd, I'd love to kind of dig into a little bit more about Teach Children to Save here. You have Citi is one of our is one of our banks that works with us on Teach Children to Save.

And Michelle, I'd just love to turn it over to you to talk a little bit more about your experience and Citi's experience as a, as a Teach Children to Save a ABAnk and how it's wor been involved in your, how this resource has been involved in your bank's community engagement. Michelle A. Thornhill: Perfect. Thanks Evan. And I have to say that April is actually one of my favorite times of the year, and that is because it is Teach Children to Save month.

It is financial literacy month and I think for over 20 years now, Citi has participated in the Teach Children to Save campaign, which provides an opportunity for Citi colleagues to get out in their communities, to leverage our nonprofit partners to participate in afterschool programs where we are empowering the next generation with essential financial skills for a stronger future. We know that many of these skills often are not taught.

At home, oftentimes they're not even learned until you experience it, them as an as an adult. And so the opportunity for Citi colleagues to leverage their knowledge and banking expertise as volunteers to come up with immersive financial education experiences that equips students and young people with essential financial skills.

It's something that we look forward to every year whether that is being engaged in New York which is our headquarter market, and leveraging our partners like the New York Mets or our sponsorship with the New York Mets, where we're able to host students at the New York Mets. To whether it is working with organizations in LA and DC and South Florida, really all across the country.

It is something that we take particular pride in during the month of April, but certainly something that we do throughout the year. So you talked about the New York Mets, and I know, and, and I know, you know, and, and you talked about immersive experiences, which is pretty cool.

I, I, I've been part of some, you know, experiences going into the classroom with Teach Children to Save, but can you talk a little bit more about what an immersive experience involved and, and an immersive experience with the, with the New York Mets looks like for Teach Children to Save at, at, at, at Citi Field? Michelle A. Thornhill: Yeah, so this is actually our second year. But this year on April the 22nd.

We've collaborated with the New York Mets and Citi will host 120 middle school students that are served by New York City based nonprofit, nonprofit organizations for a financial empowerment workshop at Citi Field. All in celebration of Teach Children to Save the campaign and financial literacy month.

There actually will be Citi volunteers that will talk to students about topics such as budgeting and saving, and they'll be joined by a member of the Mets organization who will discuss their career journey following the workshop, which is maybe often with the students they're probably most excited about. They'll also get to stay and watch the Mets take on the Philadelphia Phillies.

And so what also makes this particular day special is it not only brings our city colleagues, it not only leverage leverages our sponsorship of the New York Mets, but it brings together, together several of our nonprofit partners, so Queens Community house, the YMCA of Greater New York, and Roads to Success, which is joined with me here on the call today. Yeah. Let's do, let's turn the microphone over to, to Bashan now.

And I'd love to you, I'd love it if you could just tell our listeners a little more about Roads to Success, what you do and how you, how your organization intersects with financial education.

Our approach encompasses academic support, social emotional learning, workforce skill development, wellness, college and career exploration, and financial literacy, with a mission to empower all young people to take control of their future. At Roads to Success, we understand that early adult financial decisions can have lifelong con, lifelong consequences, right?

So in our mission to empower, inspire young people to take growth their future, it's essential that we equip them with the tools to manage their money effectively, right? So our hope is that with the knowledge gain from our financial education programs and initiatives, we're able to help our youth that live in communities of promise avoid the cycle of debt, economic insecurity, right. That many of their families currently face.

I'm curious, Michelle, and, and Bashan, where are you seeing, how are you seeing creative ways of innovative ways really of getting kids, young people to engage with this financial, with the, with the financial literacy subject matter. I'd love it. Love to get, get a sense of how you're, how you're doing that beyond just the immersive experience of getting to go to city field, which is pretty cool.

What's the what, what, what else are you seeing in terms of how best to how, what bankers can learn about how to engage in innovative ways with, with young people today? Michelle A. Thornhill: So thanks Evan and I can give you at least one example. Well, let me first say, the content that is provided by the ABA Foundation is amazing.

It makes it easy to, for us to engage our city colleagues, to go out into their communities and to leverage the modules that are available to then use their creativity. To come up with ways to deliver that content. And so one example of that is one of the market managers on my team actually partnered with the Illumina productions. They are a nonprofit production company.

They created a lively interactive play for children called Sammy the Squirrel, that teaches the important financial education concepts and captures the imaginations of young students across New York City. So thinking about topics such as budgeting, saving, investing, and patch, packaging it in a fun way that gets kids even more expired.

What I like about this particular play is that it follows a squirrel and her forest friends make key decisions on how to put their money or their acorns to use, whether they should spend it, save it, or invest it for the long term. And so we believe that really combining financial education with fun. Is really what makes these topics stick.

Of what they're typically learning. But outside of that, when we expanded to some of our afterschool programs, to community programs or, you know, even weekend programs we do have to be a little bit more creative, right? Because kids are usually coming to these spaces to engage in like recreation and play, right? But we know how important the information is to get to them. So we'll do things like gamify the learning, right?

So we'll do like budget scenario games where we give students maybe like a fixed income and have them make choices as it relates to like ramp. Or entertainment or their needs versus their wants. Right? And it's like, you only have this amount of money, what are you gonna do? Right? Are you gonna buy those pair Jordans, right.

Or are you just gonna buy a pair of sneakers that you need to get through, you know, to get you from home to school and to, and any other place you need to get to as opposed to spending all your money on that expensive sneaker, right. As just an, as an example. So I think using like real world experiences, things that, what their lives, what they really experience in their lives, in their day to day is one way. We've also done interesting things like financial escape rooms, right?

Where like students have to solve puzzle puzzles related to budgeting or credit or saving to escape the room, right? So that we can kind of like, again, gamify the learning, get them excited about. Some of the information, but in ways that they wouldn't necessarily expect, right?

It wouldn't be just a typical workshop or a classroom activity, but we're really trying to, to meet them where they're at in terms of the expectation to have some kind of recreation and playing fun while learning the material.

So the I wanna take a quick moment here and thank our sponsor for this episode. This episode is presented by banking with interest. A podcast from Intrafi featuring in-depth analysis and insight into the policy changes reshaping the banking industry with insightful interviews and previews of pending policy challenges. The podcast is an essential listen for anyone connected to the financial services industry.

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And now back to the AB eight Banking Journal podcast, conversation with Michelle and Bashan. You know, as you, you think about you, you've got, you know, you talked about Sammy, the squirrel, the, the, this innovative play you talked about, the city field event, you know, not all banks are gonna be able to deliver a big event at a at a major league ballpark.

But what's, what are some, what's some advice that you might have for a smaller bank in terms of thinking creatively and leveraging the resources that are available to them and in their community to deliver innovative financial education solutions that match the scale of that, of that local bank and local community? Michelle A. Thornhill: No, I think that's a great question and I think the first is to leverage.

The ABA foundation content for any of the campaigns that they administer and the modules are relevant. The opportunity to be creative. I would encourage banks to leverage the space that they have, you know, if there is an opportunity to bring students into branches to give them a tour. Most kids don't grow up saying, I wanna be a banker, or I wanna be in financial services. There are so many careers in financial services.

So hopefully through what we're doing, we're also inspiring the next generation of bankers, right? Certainly from being a teller. But you could be an engineer, you could be in marketing, you could be a technology, you can be an investment bank. There are so many career opportunities. So I think for banks is leverage the space. The content first, leverage the space. You have, leverage your partners, your nonprofit partners.

They're always looking for individuals who are willing to give their time to come in and teach to their students. Leverage after school programs, churches, synagogues. This content can be delivered anywhere and is applicable to everyone. So that's what I would say. You don't have to build something to deliver the content you need willing people who are willing to sow their time and their talent in the community.

That's has a lot of opportunity to have a captive audience that if you're interested, you can just reach out to your community based organization, see what kind of events they're already hosting, and then just kind of like collaborate right with them to bring this information into the space because we're always looking. For opportunities to engage and get this information to our youth and families who we know desperately need it, even if they don't know they do.

And and thank you so much for your partnership with the ABA Foundation and for for sharing your insights today. We really appreciate it. Thanks for having us.