As part of Youth Month and Financial Literacy Month, Harborstone Credit Union is partnering with Junior Achievement of Washington to get kids interested in responsibly dealing with money.
It’s no easy task, but the two organizations think they’ve hit on the right mix of education and entertainment to keep children engaged and learning how to manage their financial resources.
“It's so important to every aspect really of their life, and really setting themselves for a strong, solid foundation in that area,” said Hector Montano, an operations support consultant at Harborstone.
“We're really excited at Harborstone to be able to partner with Junior Achievement of Washington, and really we're partnered because we share that same focus on really wanting to strengthen financial education and literacy for our future generations,” he said. “We're doing that in an age-appropriate way, so the curriculum's going to be relevant, yet simple to understand.
Junior Achievement provides the curriculum, and Harborstone team members teach it to students in the community.
“It's about giving kids and teens an opportunity to take a look at what their financial future can look like,” Montano said.
Students are assigned different financial realities – do I save my allowance; do I spend some of it; what do I need to do in order to buy a car down the road – and are walked through their options by a Harborstone expert.
“We're really focused on paying yourself first,” Montano said. “Understanding that it's important to have savings for their long-term retirement plans, it's important to have savings for emergencies as well as certain different life goals that they might have, but also to talk about all the different things – bills, financial responsibility decisions that they're going to have to make.”
Harborstone and Junior Achievement have been conducting these classes remotely, but hope to resume in-person classes soon. Either way, the curriculum is filled with lessons on sound financial planning that speak to kids.
“It’s important to get them to understand this a big part of their life,” Montano said. “There's the foundation, and you’re able to get them excited (seeing their savings) accruing over time – you see that $20 becomes $100, it becomes $200, and you become excited about that.”
For more information on the program, visit the Junior Achievement of Washington, or Harborstone Credit Union websites.
Sponsored by Harborstone. Segment Producer Suzie Wiley. Watch New Day Northwest 11 AM weekdays on KING 5 and streaming live on KING5.com. Contact New Day.