Bank Volunteers Celebrate National Financial Literacy Month with New Teach Children to Save Lessons

On April 25th, bank employees will deliver financial literacy lessons to K-8 students across the nation as part of the ABA Foundation’s 2024 Teach Children to Save Day. The annual Teach Children to Save campaign is a centerpiece of the banking industry’s longstanding commitment to youth financial education. Participating bankers will raise financial awareness through a combination of community events, virtual presentations, social media engagement and in-branch resources.

In a Teach Children to Save lesson, volunteer bank employees teach students the fundamentals of personal finance through age-specific activities and interactive scenarios. The ABA Foundation provides registered banks with turn-key educational resources at no cost to help facilitate these lessons. This year, the Foundation will roll out redesigned lesson plans for grades K-2, new interactive activities for each grade band (K-2, 3-5, 6-8), and an improved Teach Children to Save Banker resource page.

“We are grateful to our bank partners for helping us get these new and engaging financial education resources into communities across the country,” said Lindsay Torrico, executive director, ABA Foundation. “Our mission at the ABA Foundation is to ensure consumers of all ages have the financial knowledge they need to build stable and successful futures, and this year’s Teach Children to Save campaign puts us one step closer to that goal.”

More than 758 banks of all sizes and charters have held or plan to hold Teach Children to Save events throughout 2023 and 2024, reaching more than 890,000 students. These critical lessons, led by more than 23,500 banker volunteers, are a key component to the ABA Foundation’s three-year industry-wide commitment to reach five million Americans with financial education lessons through its campaigns.

To celebrate Teach Children to Save, ABA staff led financial literacy lessons at Junior Achievement’s Finance Park in Silver Spring, Md. on April 8. Staff volunteers helped educate 7th graders from Odessa Middle School in Md. on important topics like budgeting and understanding debit and credit, as well as saving, investing and risk management. Students were assigned a career, family, salary, debt level and credit score. Then ABA volunteers helped them apply what they’ve learned as they navigated financial decision making within the facility’s “mini city.”

Additionally, ABA will mark both Teach Children to Save Day and Bring Your Child to Work Day at its offices by inviting employees’ children to join for food, fun activities and financial literacy lessons.

“We believe strongly in the value of early financial education, and what better way to celebrate this year’s Teach Children to Save campaign than to start with our very own ABA family,” said Rob Nichols, ABA president and CEO. “We hope these lessons, and those happening across the country this April, will build the foundation for the next generation of smart money managers.”

The ABA Foundation is able to provide Teach Children to Save resources for free to banks across the nation thanks to financial support from the program’s national sponsors: Ally Financial, Citi and Zions Bancorp.