Financial literacy for vulnerable communities
Sophie is from Concord, Massachusetts heading to Johns Hopkins University. She founded her high school's Financial Education & Outreach Club (200+ elementary students taught), is part of the Massachusetts Financial Empowerment Network, and created 'Flippy's Money Adventures' — a children's book series teaching personal finance in an accessible way.
"Financial health means ensuring that everyone is equipped with the financial knowledge and skills they need to avoid financial traps or scams and live a life of financial independence. We must focus on vulnerable groups, especially immigrants, so they are aware of financial pitfalls and don't fall into them. It's useless if only half of the people in a community have financial freedom, or even 99%. Even if 1000 people are financially free and only 1 person is financially struggling, that isn't enough to say the community has sufficient financial health."
The majority of families in my community come from generations of wealth. As an Asian girl with immigrant parents, I noticed that my classmates' parents had vast financial knowledge and created a whole plan on educating their children — $10 allowance every month, jars for saving and spending, a bank account at 11. On the other hand, my parents never even mentioned the concept of money to me. Financial literacy is not a part of my district's school curriculum, so students coming from families like mine will never get exposed to financial knowledge or skills until it's too late. I founded my school's Financial Education & Outreach Club so anyone could feel comfortable exploring personal finance — most of our members are girls of color.
There's a socioeconomic divide and a gender divide. At my high school, I noticed that girls were underrepresented in business clubs and rarely spoke up in my Economics class. When I asked why, they told me they felt intimidated. Dozens of families in my own community still live in homeless shelters and go to food pantries — and financial literacy isn't in my district's curriculum, so kids from immigrant families like mine don't get exposed to it until it's too late.
At Johns Hopkins, I plan to do a lot of work in Baltimore — partnering with or creating financial literacy programs for children, especially girls of color, at local homeless shelters, schools, and libraries. I'll continue presentations on 'Flippy's Money Adventures' in Maryland and other states, and create new financial literacy resources for in-person and online sharing. I also plan to advocate for financial literacy policies on a state or national level to ensure every person has access to these crucial tools.
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