Recently, the East Jacksonville Neighborhood Resource Center hosted a financial literacy workshop for middle school and high school students in Jacksonville’s eastside.

 

Representatives from Urban Trust Bank in Jacksonville and the U.S. Department of Treasury spoke at the program, called "Get Smart About Credit," which was aimed at teaching children and young adults how to manage their money through the use of savings accounts, budgets and building credit smartly.
 

"This is exactly the kind of thing we're trying to enable across the entire country," said Dr. Lee. "This program was a quick and effective way to educate the youth on saving, spending and credit cards before they get to the age where it could seriously harm them if they get it wrong."

 

FreshMinistries staff members, 6-Point Community Initiative director Beverly Toney and Communities Empowering Youth director Michelle Hughes, both completed training to become qualified to teach financial literacy. Now, Toney is teaching the essential skills to students at FreshMinistries’ free hospitality job training program, Jacksonville Hospitality Institute (JHI).

 

“We’ve been teaching life skills in addition to job skills at JHI for a while,” said Toney. “But financial literacy is one those important skill sets no one should be sent into the workforce without.”

 

Today’s economically-trying times have highlighted the need for financial education, stressed Dr. Lee. “Whether you’re talking about young adults dealing with home ownership for the first time or children with a few dollars in their pockets, everyone needs to know how to manage their money.”