When Give Big Becomes Teach Big
It’s always special when several of our passions align, and our San Francisco team recently experienced this intersection with the opportunity to teach financial literacy to local high school students. For this event, the team spent a day teaching teens about the impact of education and career choices on your finances, how to make smart shopping and saving choices, and more. What follows is an overview of the team’s experience and some of the financial lessons that you may choose to share with the young people in your life. Give Big!
The Importance of Financial Literacy
It’s typically around this time of year that people ask themselves “why didn’t I learn about taxes in school?”. Taxes are a whole topic unto themselves, but the question itself speaks to a topic that we, at Yeske Buie, are passionate about: financial literacy. Study after study finds there is a positive correlation between financial literacy and future financial outcomes. In turn, better financial outcomes mean more individuals are freer to support their Live Big lives – which we absolutely love. Live Big is one of several core values, but so is Give Big. Give Big, as Rustin McManis, Associate Financial Planner, explains includes “empowering others with generosity and abundance”.
In alignment with our passions for giving and for financial literacy, Sydney Woodward, Financial Planner and current Director of Pro-Bono for FPA San Francisco, alongside Junior Achievement, an organization that aims to give young people the knowledge and skills to own their economic success, helped organize a Financial Literacy Day for George Washington High School in San Francisco. Our local team, Sydney, Aubrey, Rustin, and Tim, shipped off to the SF Southeast Community Center in Hunters Point, with a goal of promoting financial literacy and, as Aubrey put it, “use our knowledge to make an impact on the community”.
Team Members from Left to Right: Rustin, Sydney, Aubrey, and Tim
Valuable Financial Lessons
Each attending member of the Yeske Buie team taught several classes on personal finance including the importance of choosing careers aligned with the students’ priorities and values, the importance of saving and how to save effectively, how to make smart shopping choices, and how to best use credit and credit cards. The young adults in attendance signed up for these classes voluntarily – showcasing the desire of young adults to learn more about personal finance and set themselves up for future success. Even more, the students engaged with our team about the various lessons and asked insightful questions about the topics at hand, our work, and even the meaning of life itself (it seems good financial planning gets to people’s values no matter one’s age!).
Give Big
We would be remiss if we did not point out that a great aspect of giving generously is that it is truly a win-win. At the end of the day, students were asked for their takeaways from the lessons, and there was a unique sense of pride experienced when students recited lessons from each of the Yeske Buie team member’s sessions. We also had the opportunity to take ourselves out of our normal day-today for a valuable challenge. As the saying goes, “experience is the best teacher” (though we hoped we were a close second!), and Rustin appreciated this challenge noting, “speaking in this kind of setting was a new experience that challenged and pushed me out of my comfort zone – an opportunity that very much aligns with my pursuit of continual betterment”.
To end on a note of gratitude, the opportunity deepened our appreciation for how the teachers in our lives embodied Give Big to us and the time, energy, and dedication that goes into planning and executing a lesson. It was a special day for all those involved, one we certainly will not forget, and we hope to have made a lasting impact on all those who attended.
