Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Education: Youth Financial Literacy

JUMA VENTURES
Fawnee Evnochides
Airdate:

LEDE:
A San Francisco-based nonprofit organization called Juma Ventures is teaching low-income teenagers how to prepare for their financial futures. Juma is helping youth hone their employment skills and earn some cash with work at big league ballparks?but beyond just jobs in food concessions, the program also teaches them how to be financially literate?through workshops that show them how to save money, spend responsibly and build their assets. Fawnee Evnochides reports on a local group that?s helping kids get into the game.

Scene 1: Ballpark
Ballpark ambi: sound of teenager working concessions at SBC

FE 1: Next time you?re at AT&T Park, if you happen to buy a Ben and Jerry?s ice cream or a Tully?s coffee, take a look at your vendor. It?s a young person working with Juma Ventures?a group that employs low- income youth to improve their chances for a prosperous future. On the face of it, a job in food concessions might not seem like a big step toward financial success. But 17-year-old Juma employee Cheryl Pasqual says that in her first year, she?s already learned some work skills: how to handle money, how to deal with the pressure of long lines and impatient customers?and now she?s already moving up in the ranks.

CP 01
I started out as scooper. And now I?m training to be a team leader? It?s things like taking inventory, being in charge at the register, I?m the person who greets the customers instead of scooping the ice cream or making the coffee.

FE 2: As a team leader, Cheryl will earn 9.32 an hour. And while that wage doesn?t go far in the pricy bay area--she?s getting something that could prove a lot more valuable from Juma Ventures: an education in financial literacy; and the chance to invest in an Individual Development Account, or IDA. That?s a matched savings account, meant to encourage low-income Americans to save for the future. For every $50 Cheryl saves, Juma Ventures matches her savings two to one. So that original $50 becomes a total of $150 she can use for college, starting a small business, or buying her first home.

CP 02
(laughs) So I guess its really working out for me, I?m going to go check my balance after this. (laughs)?they triple it. So I?ve probably saved at least a thousand so far. But there will be more, There will be more.

Jim Schorr is the Executive Director of Juma Ventures.

JS 1
It provides a safety net that otherwise doesn?t exist for these youth and gives them some asset base to begin to invest in their futures, whether its college tuition expenses or some other kind of asset purchase. (((But its?))) having a little bit of money in the bank changes everything.

FE 3: Juma Ventures started as an employment program for homeless youth in 1993, at San Francisco?s Larkin Street Youth Services. The next year, Juma, which means ?work? in Swahili, became a separate nonprofit organization geared toward a wider variety of youth from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. About 50% of Juma?s funding comes from their franchise business operations and about half comes from foundations, corporations and local government as well as some individual donor support. And it?s proven very successful-- Juma is now the largest youth IDA program in the country. In addition to helping youth build their savings through the IDA program, Schorr says that Juma?s financial education workshops teaches them to be lifelong savers...

JS 2
Where they are literally developing habits that will serve them well for the rest of their lives, goal setting habits and monthly savings habits and saving a little bit of money from every paycheck towards whatever their savings goal is. It?s a very powerful thing. :39

AMBI Financial Literacy Workshop ? STUDENTS CHATTING

FE 4: 22-year-old Gabe Mello was once a Juma participant. Now, as Asset Services Coordinator, he leads a money skills workshop at Juma Ventures in downtown San Francisco.

GM 1
We work with youth around kind of examining some of their habits with money, and (((how their emotions play a role in the decisions they make, with what they do with their finances and))) then we also talk to youth frankly about what their priorities are and making sure that their day to day actions are in line with what their priorities are. And we use those discussions to help the youth make a budget for themselves so they can take a realistic look at what sources of income they have and what decisions they?re making on where to spend that money.

FE 04a Today, Melo is teaching 6 teenagers how to create a budget.

Mello teaching WORKSHOP
?? I want you guys to think of one thing that you feel like is your priority: so if your priority is buying a car, you?re going to write that on the side of your paper. If your priority is saving for college, you?re going to write that. (student asks, ?can we have this every month?? Yeah, you can have this every month, but whatever your priority is---you can pick between one and three things that you want to be a priority. But whatever things that you feel are really important to you, write that on the side of your paper right here, before you start your budget??

AMBI Mello WORKSHOP FADE TO BED UNDER FE05

FE 5: 90% of Juma?s participants are youth of color, and all of them come from the Bay Area?s lowest-income neighborhoods, like Bayview/Hunter?s Point, Visitacion Valley, and East Oakland. That lower income status qualifies them for IDA accounts. And as they learn how to track expenses and save money each month for their IDAs, Juma youth also learn about credit, how to choose the right bank account, balance a checkbook, and tell the difference between good debt and bad debt. In the second year of the program, they even explore investing.

POST WORKSHOP CONVERSATIONS

STUDENT01 Workshop ambi 02 ?I spend so much money on clothes? fade under?

STUDENT02 Workshop ambi 03 40 :35
Okay, there?s this thing called tapioca drinks, its really addicting. They?re like 3 dollars a cup and I used to buy them like every day. But know that I realize that I have to save for college, I stopped, well I didn?t stop buying them, but I made a realistic goal. I cut it down to like once a week. And yeah, I save a lot, yeah.

STUDENT03 Workshop ambi 04
I always used to buy clothes, and I still kind of do, But now I have like 200 dollars saved up because I haven?t been shopping.

FE 6: 18-year-old Orlando Campbell, who will be attending San Francisco State next year?has set a goal of saving $100 a month?but he?s managed to find a way to save his entire paycheck from his job at the ballpark. Mello asks him about his savings strategy.

Ambi 05
Gabe: when you get your paycheck, do you buy everything you need first and then you have that $100 left over?

Orlando: I usually save my whole paycheck because I have direct deposit.

Gabe: How does direct deposit help you out in saving?

Orlando: Because you don?t have the money in your hand to spend. So you just don?t spend it.

Gabe : So that?s like another strategy. Some people talk about the budget, like if they write it down, its easier to stick to it.?(fade under my narration) :30

FE 7: That kind of strategy helped Juma alumni Jennifer Ruiz save enough in her IDA to pay for books, tuition and a new computer for her first year at San Francisco State. She?s the first in her family to go to college.

Jennifer Ruiz 1
And basically, that makes me feel proud of myself because my parents came here (((for them to have a better life and))) for their children to have a better life and to get educated and be successful in their lives and (((basically that?s very important to me because I am the first to go and))) I do want to make them feel proud of me and make them realize that I did pay attention all those times they lectured me about going to school. (((So its important to me going to college and being successful.))) ONE WAY OR ANOTHER WE?LL SHORTEN THIS QUOTE, I THINK.

FE 8: Juma Ventures boasts an impressive success rate: about 85% of the 300 youth involved in the program each year in San Francisco enroll in college or find living wage employment. And now there are more opportunities for young adults in the East Bay --since Juma has expanded its concessions enterprise to the Oakland Coliseum. The program hopes to bring its ?Field of Dreams? initiative to stadiums throughout the country.

I?m Fawnee Evnochides in San Francisco.

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