Step In with the Current of Financial Education!

I’m from the U.P. and love to trout fish. As a young boy, I learned how to navigate my way through rivers where much larger men were pushed underwater. My dad taught me how to use the current as a key catalyst to help me get to where I was going, while others dismissed the current as important or even tried to fight it.

The current for financial literacy is definitely flowing, and gaining speed. We have Money Smart Week, National Financial Capability Challenge, Obama’s Declaration for April 2010 to be Financial Literacy Month, and now Michigan House Representatives have declared April to be Youth Financial Literacy Month (summarized below).

River currents alone won’t catch fish, but they can help to take you to the place where fish are. We can use the financial currents to bring awareness and real improvements in others lives, helping financial education become mainstream.

House Resolution No. 246 - Youth Financial Literacy Month - was sponsored by Michigan House Representatives Scripps, Bolger, Robert Jones, Kandrevas, LeBlanc, Liss, Lund, Mayes, Neumann, Rogers, Tlaib and Valentine.

To summarize from the bill, it encourages the informed use of credit and other financial products and services to beneift individuals and business for a better future. It recognizes that when these sklls are learned early, it will encourage personal responsibility and the ability for all income levels to achieve more in life. It recognizes the difficulties of the past decade financially for many people. Our youth are our greatest assets, and at the core to the solution is through increased financial education so that our youth are better prepared to succeed.

As stated in the resolution, it ...encourages all citizens to participate in the aims and goals of this effort by raising public awareness about the need for increased financial literacy in our schools and among our children.

Step in the water and use the currents in your job or organization to help further the cause of all your hard and important work.

I learned early on that it’s much easier to catch fish when your head is above water!

James Studinger
Vice Chair – Michigan JumpStart Coalition
Author of Wealth Is a Choice