Money Rocks -- March 7, 2015
Money Rocks is a free youth financial summit held by Family Services, Inc. This year the event was held at Charleston Southern University. This event provides an opportunity for teens and young adults to learn basic financial management concepts, job readiness skills, and how to pay for college.
500
97
25
attendees
volunteers
community
organizations
Things you should know about Money Rocks 2015...
Pretest Data results:
40% did not have a bank account of any kind
55% saved occasionally
13% spend what they receive as soon as they can
As a result of Money Rocks...
24% opened a new checking or savings account
24% began researching ways to pay for college
48% started saving money for future wants/needs
60% starting weighing wants versus needs when making a decision
Our 2015 Sponsors
Day of Caring -- November 13, 2015
The Day of Caring provides the opportunity for volunteers from around the Tricounty area to join together with local community-enrichment agencies and schools to work on one-time service projects.
This year FSI chose a project in a very established North Charleston community, Liberty Hill. The Charles Pinckney community center had a children's library that was in need of some updates. We received donations of children's books, a new CD player, couch and love seat, bean bag chairs, and carpets.
The success of this opportunity was made possible by our volunteers. In addition to the 14 Family Services volunteers, we also had the pleasure to serve with volunteers from Palmetto Youth Connections, Evan Guthrie Law Firm, and a volunteer from Roper St. Francis.
We received boxes of book donations from Harper Collins Publishers, Friends of the Library, Mr. K's Used Books, and FSI staff members!
We look forward to the opportunity to give back on Day of Caring 2016!
Student Debt Solutions Rollout
If you take a look at any statistic you will see that we have a serious problem on our hands when it comes to student loan debt. Two-thirds of students graduating from colleges and universities have some type of debt. This all adds up to about $1.2 trillion and 40 million borrowers. With 8 million borrowers in default on $100 billion of student debt obviously things can not continue in this direction. Being aware of this, Family Services wanted to offer borrowers a guiding hand in what is slowly becoming the biggest financial hindrance in the nation.
With the experience and knowledge of our financial education manager, Kristin Bastian, we developed a Managing Your Student Loans workshop. Our first workshop was held November 16, 2015. We had 13 participants after that in 2015. We hope to get the word out about our program and see more people in control of their debt and finances.
