SUMMERYOUTHCAMPAIGN

2010 GRANTS
THE UNITED STATES CONFERENCE OF MAYORS
COUNCIL FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CITY
MAYORS
FOR FINANCIAL LITERACY
CONTENTS
WELCOME
BATON ROUGE
LOUISIANA 3
CHARLOTTE
NORTH CAROLINA 4
HOUSTON
TEXAS 5
NORWALK
CONNECTICUT 6
PHILADELPHIA
PENNSYLVANIA 7
DollarWI$E // Mayors for Financial Literacy is the ofcial nancial
education and literacy effort of The United States Conference
of Mayors and its Council for the New American City. Since its
inception in 2004, mayors and cities across America have made
a commitment to increasing their residents nancial literacy by
participating in all that DollarWI$E has to offer.
What is the DollarWI$E Summer Youth Campaign?
Through mayors summer youth employment programs across the
country each year, thousands of youth and young adults get their
rst joband their rst paycheck. This watershed event in a young
persons live is an ideal teachable moment to introduce nancial
education and set him/her on a path toward lifelong nancial
stability and wise money management.
The goal of the DollarWI$E Summer Youth Campaign is to
make nancial education an integral component of every SYEP
job in the country. To this end, DollarWI$E provides interested
cities with support and technical assistance. It also offers its
annual DollarWI$E Summer Youth Campaign grants program.
Underwritten by Bank of America, founding sponsor of DollarWI$E,
in 2010 this grants program offered minigrants of $2,000 each to
ve recipient cities across the country. This publication describes
each recipient citys summer youth employment program and how
the city integrated nancial education into it.
THE UNITED STATES CONFERENCE OF MAYORS
1620 I Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20006
202.293.7330
202.293.2353 fax
www.usmayors.org
Elizabeth B. Kautz
Mayor of Burnsville
President
Antonio R. Villaraigosa
Mayor of Los Angeles
Vice President
Michael A. Nutter
Mayor of Philadelphia
Second VicePresident
Tom Cochran
CEO and Executive Director
www.dollarwiseonline.org
dollarwise@usmayors.org
202.861.6759
The City of Baton Rouge/Parish of East Baton Rouges Summer Youth
Employment Program focuses on providing a structured learning experience
for participants while also developing good work and nancial habits in
youth. Participants were placed in jobs within city agencies and private
businesses throughout the area. During the summer, members of the Mayor-
President Kip Holdens Financial Literacy Coalition presented participants in
the Summer Youth Employment Program a nancial literacy seminar titled
Building A Savings Habit. The seminar was the cornerstone of their youth
orientation event, which underscored the importance of nancial literacy.
By leveraging this existing nancial literacy initiative and integrating
it with the Summer Youth Employment Program, the city was able to teach
participants about responsible money management, saving, goal setting,
and budgeting. Those over 18 years old also participated in a smaller session
which included the opportunity to open free savings and checking accounts
onsite during the orientation, provided by a handful of local banks and
credit unions. Youth under 18 were given this same opportunity to open free
checking and savings accounts with their parents.
Baton Rouge used the DollarWI$E Summer Youth Campaign grant
for the next phase of their nancial literacy component. Summer Youth
Employment Program participants were given monetary incentives to save as
much money as possible during their employment tenure. Baton Rouge was
also able to leverage their existing bank partnerships to increase the nancial
incentive. Incentives kicked in when a participant saved at least $250, when a
$50 incentive from banks and the DollarWI$E grant was provided. In addition
to the nancial incentive, participants were also saving for the goal to win
the top saver prize, an Apple iPad. (A second iPad was also given away, but
participating youths were only aware of one at the beginning of summer).
The iPad awardees also received nancial management applications from the
iTunes App Store to encourage the continuation of the saving habit.
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MELVIN KIP HOLDEN
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The Mayors Youth Employment Program (MYEP) worked with Central
Piedmont Community College (CPCC), Goodwill Industries of the Southern
Piedmont, the Institute for Entrepreneurship, City of Charlotte Community
and Commerce, and the Financial Planning Association (FPA) to incorporate
nancial literacy into MYEP for summer 2010. With Goodwill, MYEP launched
Youth Job Connection to provide job and career resources to students
between 14 and 18. Through this program, they explore potential career
opportunities, acquire job readiness skills, and eventually employment.
Participants in the program had to complete a training curriculum, which
included job readiness, basic customer service, and nancial education.
Participants also completed a one-day nancial literacy session
designed to empower youth with basic nancial knowledge such as check
writing, budgeting, tax withholding, and credit. Students opened checking
and savings accounts with direct deposit through local nancial institutions.
The DollarWI$E grant was used specically for a group exercise at
CPCC where 162 individuals participated in a simulation project focused on
improving money management skills. In this simulation, participants took
on the role of a family or an individual facing poverty and other economic
challenges. Each participant must navigate community services, such as
banks, food pantries, employers, pawnbrokers, grocery stores, the welfare
ofce, police stations, utilities, and rent payment centers, in an attempt
to provide basic necessities and shelter. All of this was based on real-time
poverty statistics and cost-of-living gures and represented those who were
living above the ofcial poverty line. The goal was to have a lasting impact on
youth and develop good savings and money management strategies for life.
The City of Charlotte received matching funds and in-kind donations
for meeting space, staff, training, and materials for nancial literacy. Other
partners such as Bank of America and the FPA provided additional training
and explained identity theft and credit card offers for teens.
MAYOR
ANTHONY FOXX
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HoustonWorks USA, along with YouthBuild Houston, The HAYS Center and
the City of Houston, developed a Summer Youth Employment Program that
assists low-income individuals between the ages of 16 and 24 in nding a
summer job. Approximately 700 individuals participated in this program.
HoustonWorks USAs primary role was to recruit, train, and place these
individuals in various business and organizations which offered a variety
of occupations and work environments. Before being placed into a job,
participants attended seminars on rsum writing, job searching, interview
tips, and dressing for success. Incorporated into this years seminars was
a nancial education session that addressed wages, taxes, and paychecks
along with credit cards, payday loans, and check cashing.
Through the DollarWI$E grant, HoustonWorks USA incorporated
a nancial education component into the program. HoustonWorks USA
utilized materials in the Jump$tart Coalitions National Standards in K12
Personal Finance Education curriculum. The organization used the grant to
supplement printing costs and provide prizes for various competitions that
were designed specically to excite and engage participants in becoming
more nancially literate.
In the future, HoustonWorks USA intends to expand the nancial
education component of its Summer Youth Employment Program by offering
additional nancial education courses during their program along with
expanding its ability to track what students are learning in the program.
MAYOR
ANNISE PARKER
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The Norwalk Summer Youth Employment Program employs approximately
175 youths between the ages of 14 and 18 during the summer months.
Participants have the opportunity to earn $2,000 each from their jobs.
Prospective participants are interviewed and placed with nonprots and
businesses within their eld of interest where they can learn a specic
profession, navigate the business environment, and earn an income. Prior to
employment, participants spent one week in an intensive pre-employment
workshop where they learn appropriate business etiquette, job readiness,
and employer expectations.
In 2008, a nancial literacy component was added to the summer
program by introducing educational sessions on money management,
income and expense management, budgeting, planning, and borrowing
basics. These sessions took place over a period of three weeks and were
expanded thanks to the DollarWI$E grant.
Through the DollarWI$E grant and other nancial resources, Norwalks
SYEP was able to expand nancial education to the families of program
participants in addition to the youth. The goal was to allow the entire family
unit, especially low- to moderate-income families, to develop basic nancial
knowledge and take action to improve their own nancial situation. Topics
included budgeting, banking, understanding credit reports and correcting
errors, use of credit, avoiding predatory lending, and getting out of debt.
This idea of incorporating the entire family unit in addition to the youth
participant in this expanded nancial education program helps reinforce
these values and can lay the seeds to a long-term adoption of these lessons.
MAYOR
RICHARD A. MOCCIA
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The Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board partnered with the
Philadelphia Youth Network and Philadelphia Academies, Inc., to incorporate
nancial literacy into its summer youth program. The Philadelphia Youth
Network operates WorkReady, which has a summer program focused
on three different models for youth employment: service learning, work
experience, and internships. The service-learning track allowed participants
to work as a team on an issue impacting the community that had a tangible
benet to the local and regional community. The work-experience track
allowed participants with little to no previous experience to build work-
readiness skills along with emphasizing academic achievement and its
connection to career advancement. The internship track provided more
sophisticated career exposure for those who have previous work experience
while providing college preparation and developing a work portfolio.
Philadelphia incorporated two nancial education components into
the SYEP. The rst was a video, Empowering Youth in Economics: A Tale of
Two Cities, which was shown during the process of waiting for interviews
and meetings with potential employers at the Philadelphia Youth Networks
ofce. Approximately 1,000 participants watched this video.
The second component was Money Fundamentals workshops.
These were nancial education games that participants that allowed youth
to explore topics with real-world application. These topics included the
connection between education and earnings, developing a budget, and the
impact of personal choicesthe costs of going out every week, eating out,
and so on. Approximately 400 youths participated in this program.
The DollarWI$E grant was used for the development of both
components. Philadelphia Academies, Inc., a non-prot which works to
expand life economic opportunities for Philadelphia public-school students
via career-focused programs also supported the development of these
components via in-kind support.
MAYOR
MICHAEL A. NUTTER
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DollarWI$E is dedicated to the
idea that all Americans can benet
from increased access to nancial
education. As individuals improve
their nancial literacy, they are better
prepared to build stable families, to
help themselves and their children
gain education, to be productive
members of the workforce, and to
contribute to their communities and
the nation.