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Finances
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Bayleigh McCullough and Skylar Clawson were exercising their minds in the Trinity High gym early Thursday morning. So were another 470-plus upperclassmen.
It was Financial Reality Fair day at the Park Avenue school, and Bayleigh and Skylar were speaking and listening intently to Mike Sprouse, a State Farm insurance agent. The girls, after all, are driving age and on the cusp of legal adulthood. A keen understanding of car insurance – any insurance – would be advisable to them before they mature into their late 20s.
“We’re learning about choices we will have to make as adults,” said Bayleigh, a Trinity junior and classmate of Skylar.
“Learning about handling finances is important for when we live on our own,” Skylar added.
Insurance wasn’t the only topic an estimated 480 juniors and seniors discussed and pondered as they canvassed the gym. They stopped at more than a dozen tables to speak with professionals who would enlighten them on financial matters that frequently don’t apply to teens. Vocational advice was offered as well.
A team of 40 or so volunteers engaged the young learners, commuting to Trinity from Ohio, Butler County and the Latrobe area as well as the immediate vicinity.
Chrome Federal Credit Union coordinated Financial Reality Fair, an event that has taken place at schools elsewhere in the country, including Allegheny County, but was making its debut at a Washington County school on Wednesday. Most of these advisers were from Chrome, which has locations in Canton Township, North Strabane Township and Wexford.
“Kids go through what would be a typical day for an adult,” said Patrick Flanigan, an organizer from Chrome. “They learn about costs, how to budget their money.”
A week earlier, students were given a worksheet with which they were to select a vocation and work out a budget related to what they could expect to earn. Now they were in the gym, a familiar place where they were navigating unfamiliar financial ground.
One attraction was the Wheel of Reality, similar to TV’s Wheel of Fortune, where teens spin a wheel and it lands on either a financial gain or a bill. They had to figure out how to spend their windfall or how to pay the amount owed.
Senior Lynzee Morris and Jim Valecko, a shareholder with Weltman, Weinberg & Reis Co. of Pittsburgh, plotted car payments. Valecko outlined payment terms, asking how many months Lynzee was willing to pay, and with a quick calculation, provided the applicable interest rate and monthly payment.
Lynzee was impressed by the county’s initial Financial Realty Fair.
“This puts into perspective how much things cost,” she said, “how to handle costs and how to budget for the future.”
The gym is a classroom as well.