Part of CES Credit Union’s mission is being about to help and give back to the community. One way we have started to do this is by investing in the future generations. At CES we value education the future and hope to instill good financial practices that will go with them into their adult life.
Since January 11 CES has been helping out with an after school program at Fredericktown Public Schools for middle and high school students. This is an eight week program and each week discusses a new financial topic for the students to learn about. The following are the topics covered:
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Week 1: What is a credit union?
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Week 2: Work Ethic
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Week 3: Careers and Finance
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Week 4: Savings
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Week 5: Checking
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Week 6: Budgeting
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Week 7: Borrowing
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Week 8: Finances 101 Game
Accompanied by learning materials, students also do interactive activities that help them further understand the concepts. For example, the careers and finances activity taught students how to read and interpret pay stubs. The work ethic activity gave students a variety of different scenarios that they might encounter in the work force and were asked to use their critical thinking skills to discuss how they would handle the situations in an ethical manner.
Today (3/1/17) is the last day for the after school program with CES so students will get to play Finances 101. The concept is similar to a life-sized LIFE game. To start, students will pick a card that has an occupation that interests them and shows what their monthly earnings are. Students will then travel around to different stations where they will participate in activities that determine how many kids they have, what their benefits are, what type of house they will live in, what type of TV/internet plan they have, credit card debt, etc. The emphasis is to show students what real life budgeting looks like and what to do when they come into tough financial situations.
Both CES and Fredericktown have seen a positive response to the program and it has allowed the students to begin thinking about how their finances will help them in the future. We look forward to seeing continued success with these students and through implementing this program with other schools and student outlets.