Financial Literacy Month began as a one-day acknowledgment that now runs the entire month of April. But for these two social entrepreneurs, advancing financial literacy is a task for 365 days a year — especially when it comes to youth.
Chris Banks, founder of BanksGiving believes that sound financial principles should be learned as early as possible and are the best way to break a cycle of a consumer mentality.
“The most marginalized not only don’t have access they often also don’t have the education,“ he told Generocity, adding that with too many adults, “all they know how to do is spend.”
So starting with middle schoolers, Banks teaches students “how to keep money and to grow it.”
Banks says that being a North Philadelphia native and the son of parents without much formal education, helps him relate to kids in a way most educators cannot. For example he showed students that the same $80 they were spending each year on the latest PlayStation games could have purchased shares in the company that owns the games. He made a similar argument for the students who buy their favorite celebrity’s makeup line. “I tell them they’re already spending the money, but they’re just not part of the earnings.”
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