{"id":39233,"date":"2025-03-14T17:03:32","date_gmt":"2025-03-14T21:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mdcthereporter.com\/staging\/8357\/?p=39233"},"modified":"2025-03-18T19:08:07","modified_gmt":"2025-03-18T23:08:07","slug":"sas-students-attempt-to-close-the-financial-literacy-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mdcthereporter.com\/staging\/8357\/sas-students-attempt-to-close-the-financial-literacy-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"SAS Students Attempt To Close The Financial Literacy Gap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In January of 2024, Carlos Reyes and Lucas Ross, students at Miami Dade College\u2019s<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/sasdreamfactory.net\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> School for Advance Studies<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, realized their high school curriculum lacked financial literacy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Inspired to fill the gap, the North Campus students launched FinanceFirst, an organization created\u00a0 to help children, teenagers and adults improve their financial education.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The program offers 10 financial literacy classes through their <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.financefirstedu.com\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">website<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: budgeting, saving and investing, understanding interest, debt management, taxes, insurance, retirement planning, financial products, economic factors and consumer awareness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And they offer in-person workshops at local schools and community events.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cMoney is what makes the world go round, it\u2019s more of a taboo topic, but it\u2019s super important,&#8221; said Ross, one of the organization\u2019s vice presidents. \u201cA lot of young people don\u2019t know how to file taxes, how credit cards work or simple things [everyone] needs to know.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Since last year, FinanceFirst has continued to grow its leadership team. They added another SAS student, William Bello, who creates Powerpoints presentations and activity sheets, and Elyssa Saldana, a senior at Barbara Goleman Senior High School, who manages the organization\u2019s social media and advertising.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But their growth has come with some speed bumps. The organization faced limitations hosting outreach events because most institutions required them to be registered as a nonprofit organization.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They eventually transitioned into the nonprofit sphere to expand their initiative beyond Miami Dade College.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reyes encountered another obstacle. While building the website, it failed to upload and he was forced to restart the project. The entire process took nearly 60 hours to complete.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt made me feel like I wanted to quit,\u2019\u201d said Reyes, who serves as president of the organization. \u201c[But] I was like how am I able to accomplish more if I can\u2019t even get over this small adversity.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">FinanceFirst now has 20 ambassadors who are training so they can host workshops around Florida.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They have hosted sessions at Treasure Island Elementary School in North Bay Village, teaching six to eight year olds about the value of money, saving and budgeting basics.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In addition, they have attended a National Night Out Against Crime event in Miami Beach, spreading awareness about financial literacy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Their website has engaged more than 700 visitors, garnered more than 15,000 social media views and raised more than $1,000 through <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/financefirst-securing-teens-financial-future?qid=288a61ca4ab402ce657568dfcb71b973\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">gofundme<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and cash donations. The funds are used to expand the program.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe information they&#8217;re giving students is very important,\u201d said Connie Crawford Rodriguez, who serves as the club\u2019s advisor. \u201cWe live in a society that revolves around money, investment, savings, all of that kind of stuff. So giving some basic knowledge to young people who tend not to think about that stuff at all is enormously valuable.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>\u00a0<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">FinanceFirst hosts club meetings every third Thursday of the month in Room 1121 at North Campus, 11380 N.W. 27th Ave.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For more information, contact <\/span><a href=\"mailto:FinanceFirstClub@gmail.com\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">FinanceFirstClub@gmail.com<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> or visit their Instagram page @financefirstedu.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Click<\/span><\/i><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/mdcthereporter.us19.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=4fc6146412415baee32007fd7&amp;id=b5cd3712dc\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> here<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter, The Hammerhead. For news tips, contact us at mdc.thereporter@gmail.com.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In January of 2024, Carlos Reyes and Lucas Ross, students at Miami Dade College\u2019s School for Advance Studies, realized their high school curriculum lacked financial literacy.\u00a0 Inspired to fill the gap, the North Campus students launched FinanceFirst, an organization created\u00a0 to help children, teenagers and adults improve their financial education.\u00a0 The program offers 10 financial [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13482627,"featured_media":39166,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2748],"tags":[3720],"class_list":{"0":"post-39233","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-north-campus","9":"tag-school-for-advance-studies"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>SAS Students Attempt To Close The Financial Literacy Gap<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Two Miami Dade College School for Advanced Studies launched FinanceFirst, a nonprofit organization focused on improving financial literacy through workshops and online resources.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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