Money$mart

Money$mart is a Tucker-recognized organization on campus that is entirely geared providing comprehensive financial literacy education. Their curriculum includes subjects such as banking, credit scoring, and identity theft. What's particularly interesting about Money$mart is that they are quite broad in terms of their audience -- they have held forums for high school students in Hartford County, senior citizens at local nursing homes, and Dartmouth students on campus. It's a no-brainer that $mart is a natural transition for this project!!


I brought Danielle O'Bannon (Founder) with me last Thursday, Jan. 28 to introduce FLT participants to Money$mart.  It's taken about four months for them to trust me with this budgeting class, so I decided that it would be helpful to gradually introduce Danielle/Money$mart to the participants and have them build a relationship alongside me. Danielle observed my class which reviewed Cody's receipts (I'll talk about it in the next blog!), and energetically piped in. Her presence certainly gave the class an edge since Danielle and I have different delivery styles. Most importantly, the participants LOVED her.  From Norene: (and I quote!): I feel like she can get down with us!". It's a huge compliment (you gotta trust me on this one!). 


I  will keep bringing Danielle along for the rest of winter term. We hope to co-teach a class by the end of the term, and have Money$mart conduct several (maybe even most) seminars on their own in the Spring. Anchoring this project with Money$mart is a  strategic, effective way to sustain the Family Place project since our interests in empowering community members via financial literacy are so aligned. This project allows Money$mart to leap a step ahead by working with a socioeconomic demographic that is at the poverty-level and receiving welfare benefits. Additionally, this project allows Money$mart to explore linkages between financial literacy and micro-lending in community development. The micro-lending aspect may even be a space for collaboration between Money$mart and SEEDS, who are already collaborating on projects outside of this one. By jump-starting this collaboration in February, I hope for a smooth transition come June!