Financial Literacy Promotion Project MAKE IT COUNT FINANCIALLY

BELLEFONTAINE HGH SCHOOL 555 EAST LAKE AVE. BELLEFONTAINE OHIO, 43311 GHEANNE MORENO & JESSICA MILLER MARCH 17, 2014

Tables of Contents I. II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY INTRODUCTION A. Description of the local DECA chapter B. Description of the school and community MANAGEMENT OF ACTIVITIES TARGETED AT OUTSIDE AUDIENCE A. Purpose of activities B. Planning and organization of activities C. Implementation of activities EVALUATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS A. Evaluation of campaign B. Recommendations for additional new activities for future campaigns BIBLIOGRAPHY APPENDIX

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY I believe through knowledge and discipline, financial peace is possible for all of us. Dave Ramsey

Introduction We are BHS DECA and the Mighty Chiefs! We cant wait to have you read about how we made our year count with the Make it Count Financially project for Financial Literacy Promotion. Financial Literacy In the state of Ohio it is a requirement for students to complete at least 60 hours of a financial literacy or economics class. At Bellefontaine High School we are required to take a financial literacy class that is focused on the Dave Ramsey curriculum before graduation. Therefore, the students in our chapter have a foundational knowledge of how to be financially savvy; we wanted to share this knowledge with our friends and family in the community. Therefore, we focused our project on two audiences an internal and external. Our Community Welcome to Logan County Ohio, population 45,858! In Logan County there are ten cities, with Bellefontaine being the largest population of 13,370. This is where we are located, we being the mighty Chiefs of Bellefontaine High School, at the highest point in Ohio. Purpose of Activities When our DECA chapter sat down to decide what projects we were going to focus on for 2013-14 school year we picked Financial Literacy Promotion as a priority due to the fact that approximately 60% of Bellefontaine City Schools population in economically disadvantaged. Our Internal Event Roy Hall of the DRIVEN FOUNDATION Roy Hall former OSU and NFL football player came to speak to BHS students on January 31st. He spoke to the student population to motivate them and inspire them to pursue higher education. His message was focused around O-H-I-O. O-opportunity, Hhero, I- Ignition, O- optional. This Event was amazing and had phenomenal feedback from the staff and students. Event Targeting our External Audience The Second Annual Logan County Free Financial Seminar The second primary event in support for the Financial Literacy Promotion Project was the 2nd Annual Logan County Free Financial Seminar. The main purpose of this project was to inform our target market about the importance of financial literacy which includes managing money and understanding all the different ways to save. This event occurred in partnership with the Logan County Area Chamber of Commerce. Are you ready to Make it Count? Join us, BHS DECA and lets get started. II. INTRODUCTION

A. Description of the local DECA chapter Hello, welcome we are BHS DECA and the Mighty Chiefs! We cant wait to have you read about how we made our year count with the Make it Count Financially project. At Bellefontaine High School there are a total of 47 students in the Marketing/DECA program at our school. The demographics of our chapter include 12 senior Marketing II students, 35 Marketing I students, including 28 males and 19 females, 22 seniors and 25 juniors, 1 advisor, plus six professional members including; Mr. Paul Benedetti - the CEO of the Logan County Area Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Darrin Haubert - Associate Financial Advisor for Katterhenry Investment Group (Wells Fargo Advisors), Nicole Cotterman Daniels - Logan County Area of Convention Tourism Bureau Director, Mrs. Beth Harman Superintendent of Bellefontaine City Schools, Mr. Bill Badenhop Principal of Bellefontaine High School, and Mr. Justin Powell- a local entrepreneur. We also have three alumni from the class of 2013. Our Professional members are extremely supportive of our chapter. Each student in the Marketing 2 program is required to participate in a total of twelve service hours, many of our students help with charity events that benefit our community, family, friends, and neighbors with in it including Area Road Races and our Rotarys Fall Festival.

Our local DECA chapter is run by our amazing teacher Ms. Rychener, she does so much to make sure everyone in her classes are on track and having fun at the same time. She makes sure we incorporate entrepreneurship, leadership, and character development into everything that we do in and out of class. Ms. Rychener has been the Marketing Teacher at Bellefontaine High School for seven years and has made huge improvements to the program and helped it grow in population. Every time that we go to a competition we come home with trophies. Last year we sent more than twenty students to state and seven students finished in the top ten, with two advancing to the International Career Development Conference in Anaheim, California. Our DECA chapter also has two major partnerships with Logan County Chamber of Commerce and the Logan
DECA chapter members volunteering for our local catering company, The Whitmore House.

County Area Convention Tourism Bureau. They provide us with opportunities to help

with events in the community and to organize fundraisers. The Bellefontaine High

School DECA chapter also supports many businesses like The Whitmore House, our local catering company. The owner, Mrs. Sandy Musser provides some of our students with service hours and employment opportunities around the holidays. There is also the Buy Local Logan County Campaign; this is a public relations campaign our DECA chapter has organized to promote the benefits of buying local. This year we sold loyalty key tags to people in the community and all they have to do is shop at locally owned participating businesses and show them their key tag, and save. This encourages others to buy locally because it ultimately brings the community back more money, 68$ out of every 100$ spent locally stays locally. The Buy Local Logan County Campaign has really helped to unify our community as a whole and has provided great networking opportunities for our chapter. B. Description of School and Community Our School. Bellefontaine High School offers many advanced courses to challenge students who are faster learners when it comes to certain subject fields. Academics are the number one priority here at Bellefontaine High School. The faculty and staff do a great job in making sure our school is a fun and safe learning environment to help us strive to be better than we think we can be. We have a total of 783 students in our high school. In order to be in

the Marketing program you must be a junior or senior. Our junior and senior population is a total of 349 students. Many students at our school are involved in many sports; we have soccer, football, bowling, volleyball, golf, swimming, track, cross country, basketball, cheerleading, baseball, and softball. Our school also offers many clubs and co-curricular activities like Band, AGAPE, Spanish and French Club, Art Club, National Honors Society, FCCLA and of course DECA. Financial Literacy. In the state of Ohio it is a requirement for students to complete at least 60 hours (one half of a credit) of a financial literacy or economics course. At Bellefontaine High School we are expected to take a financial literacy class that is focused on the Dave Ramsey curriculum. Dave Ramsey Profile. Daves Curriculum is called Financial Peace. Within, all students are educated on what he calls the 7 baby Steps to being successful with your finances. Dave Ramsey is an American financial author, radio host, and a motivational speaker. His main focus is encouraging people to get out of debt also preventing debt. This helps us to fully understand the concepts of money management and financial peace. Sponsored by 5/3rd bank. Upon completion of the course, we are familiar: Budgeting 101, Credit Bureaus and Collection Practices,

Wealth Building and College Savings, Dangers of Debt and also Career Choices and Taxes. Our Community. Welcome to Logan County Ohio, population 45,858! In Logan County there are ten cities, with Bellefontaine being the largest population of 13,370. This is where we are located, we being the mighty Chiefs of Bellefontaine High School, at the highest point in Ohio; we are one of the many suburbs of Columbus, our State Capital. Being approximately 45 minutes away from Columbus, the place we call home was once a place where many Indian tribes once lived, one of the most popular tribes where Blue Jackets, who made Bellefontaine their home in 1770. Why Visit Logan County? Our major tourist attraction in Ohio would be the first concrete street in America which is called McKinley Street, it was built in 1801. Many people like to travel to Bellefontaine to ride their bikes because we are the highest point in Ohio with many hills and
First Concrete Street known as McKinley Street, located in Bellefontaine OH Mad River Mountain Ski and Snowboard Resort, Located in West Liberty OH (popular tourist attraction)

this helps the bikers prepare for challenging races and enjoy a beautiful hill side view. Everyone for the most part gets along very well, there are many places for people to go and have fun or eat, like our local coffee shops, diners, bowling alley, YMCA, and a beautiful Indian Lake that you can spend a whole day on the water with family and friends. Our Population. With Bellefontaine not being a very diverse city with only 1.3% African-American, 2.2% being two or more races, and 95.3% being Caucasian, the total minority is only 5.2%. Education Level. The percent of people living in Bellefontaine that only have a high school diploma is 47.4%, college but no degree is 18.6%. Our population with a college diploma is a total of 19.2%. In correlation to this, we believe this is why the median household income is not very high. Our counties total household count is 18,463 with a median household income of $47,578. We believe a large amount of people who live in Bellefontaine do not have a significant source of income due to their lack of education. Major Employers. The major work place in Bellefontaine that does not require a college degree is the Honda East Liberty Plant with a total of 2,500 employers. The health care field is also a big contributor when it comes to providing jobs for people in Bellefontaine; the health care field is significantly growing area of work in our city. However to earn jobs in this area a higher education beyond high school is required. This fact aligns perfectly with our initiatives for the Make It Count Financially Promotion Project.

III.MANAGEMENT OF ACTIVITIES TARGETED AT OUTSIDE AUDIENCE A. Purpose of activities I believe through knowledge and discipline, financial peace is possible for all of us ~Dave Ramsey When our DECA chapter sat down to decide what projects we were going to focus on for 2013-14 school year we picked Financial Literacy

Promotion as a priority due to the fact that approximately 60% of Bellefontaine City Schools population in economically disadvantaged. When we started talking about the primary issues that affect students we talked about the concept of paying for college, selecting a career and how hard it is for graduating seniors if they dont have a positive role model in their life encouraging them to pursue a college education. We also discussed the importance of educating both parents and a younger generation. This lead us to develop three primary activities focused on three target markets. Our project was branded - Make It Count Financially. They activities are as follows:

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The first stage in the planning process for us was to determine our list of primary and secondary events. Logan County Financial Aid Night- January 9th (secondary) Roy Halls Presentation to kick off Make it Count Month Activities- February (primary) 2nd Annual Free Financial Seminar- February 13th (primary) Local Scholarship Night- February 27th (secondary) Great Minds Think - A Kids Guide to Money Presentation March 10th (secondary) B. Planning and organization of activities The following charts display our organizational structure for the project. We opted to break our activities into two categories internal and external. Our internal activities targeted our student population while our external activities targeted the community.

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C. Implementation of activities An Idea for Our Internal Audience. We decided the best way to kick off Make it Count Month was to hire a great guest speaker to relate with the whole student population. We found our guest through the DRIVEN Foundation, his name was Roy Hall. The Intent. The purpose of this first primary activity was to motivate the students and staff and to inform chapter members about what it is like to start with nothing and become something amazing. 60% of our population is economically disadvantaged and has grown up in a house hold much like Mr. Hall. The intention of his message was to influence everyone that they can be successful through any challenges faced as long as they put their minds to it. Many high school students get lazy and begin to not care

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about grades and their future. Teachers and parents telling kids that they can become successful wont make them be successful, it was all about you as an individual and how you carry yourself, also how bad you want to be successful and be happy with your life in the next ten or twenty years. Mr. Halls Bio. Per the DRIVEN Foundation website A Cleveland native, Roy Hall attended Charles F. Brush High School where he was a football and basketball standout. He attended The Ohio State University on a full athletic scholarship. He was member of the 2002 National Championship Team. While maintaining a 3.2 GPA, Roy obtained a degree in marketing and was also a five time Ohio State ScholarAthlete Award winner. The Indianapolis Colts selected Roy in the 5th round of the 2007 NFL Draft. Hall spent 4 seasons playing for the Colts and Detroit Lions Roy Hall established the Driven Foundation with the goal of impacting the world by doing little things such as outreach events and doing inspirational speaking. In the year of 2008, Roy has distributed more than 350,000 pound of FREE food to Central Ohio families. The DRIVEN foundation is a non-profit organization.

Our Event. Roy Hall was originally scheduled to speak at Bellefontaine High School on Wednesday, January 22, 2014 about his life experience, however due to inclement weather due and a school cancelation he was rescheduled to speak on January 31st. The Stats. Over 800 students, staff, and teachers were present at Roy Halls event.
This is a sample of what we distributed to our student population at our assembly. See Appendix 1

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There were 850 flyers, plus 850 pocket calendars that were passed around. To hype the students, staff, and teachers up, loud modern music was being played as they entered the auditorium. As the project coordinators, we escorted Mr. Roy Hall to the auditorium and introduced him to the entire audience. His Message. During his presentation at our school he mentioned a lot of valuable information like I can do great things if I stay focused and for the rest of your life do something that you would wake up early every morning to do for free. But one bit of his presentation that really stood out to the DECA chapter and the students of Bellefontaine High School was that he mentioned a method he calls O-H-I-O. O- stood for Opportunity. Obstacles come with opportunities, so to reach your full potential you must overcome those obstacles. H-stood for Hero. A hero can come in all different shapes and sizes and everyone can be a hero. I- stood for Ignition. How are you going to begin the journey on the right path? What is going to motivate you to start your transition and enter the key in the ignition? O- stood for Option, it is your option to strive for success or get lazy and not have enough determination to be who you want to be. Roy Hall was a child in need of motivation.

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With limited support, he completely changed his life around to make his mother proud. Through hard work and determination, he found success including earning a college degree in marketing at the Ohio State University. Roy truly was a role model and inspiration to everyone at Bellefontaine High School on the day of his presentation. Especially to the students that have limited means and have disadvantages. We hope that now, they can conquer anything and go to college as long as they put their minds to it. Pre & Post Event Publicity. With Logan County having wide variety of media available for BHS DECA to utilize, we had significant help with promoting our events. We had great publicity for the event from our local radio station known as WPKO, Connect to Home and The Bellefontaine Examiner. The Bellefontaine Examiner newspaper, as seen above did an article about the event titled Adversity Can Be Overcome. The online newspaper Connect to Home provided coverage of Roys appearance in a cooperative effort related to another event. Positive Reinforcement & Supporting Activities. The supporting events that we did for financial literacy promotion and Make it Count Month included a Challenge Wall, Local Scholarship Night and a banner in support of Roy Halls message O-H-I-O.

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Challenge Wall and Calendar. Our DECA chapter decided to create a visual that would represent Make it Count Month. We did this by placing papers that said Make it Count on the heading and followed by a fact about financial literacy that would be informative to the students at our school. As well as doing the papers we also created a pocket calendar. This was an easy way to get the word out about what we were doing. We passed these pocket calendars out at the 2nd Annual Free Financial Seminar as well as Roy Halls presentation. This was great inexpensive promotion for our campaign. Local Scholarship Meeting and Kickoff. In addition to our efforts to inform the importance of attending college we took advantage of an opportunity as advised by Mr. Hall. We decided to meet with our guidance department and create a flyer to promote our local scholarship night. This was a great opportunity for seniors to come to Bellefontaine High school with their parents on February 27th, 2014 at 6:30 p.m. and to get information about local scholarships

See Appendix 2

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and proper paper work to be eligible for those scholarships. We distributed the flyer (as shown) to the total population of seniors at our school (174) the day prior to the event as a final reminder. This meeting provided Bellefontaine High School seniors the ability to get a jump start on how they will be paying for college. Approximately 30 students and 50 parents attended the event. To this date a total of $70,072 has been made available from the scholarships. Roy Halls Banner. At the end of February we had a banner created based on Roy Halls presentation. We created it to serve as a positive reminder of his message O-H-I-O. This banner is positioned in our cafeteria in a high traffic area where is can be seen by our entire student population. Event Targeting our External Audience The Second Annual Logan County Free Financial Seminar. The second primary event in support for the Financial Literacy Promotion Project was the 2nd Annual Logan County Free Financial Seminar. The main purpose of this project was to inform our target market of all ages about the importance of financial literacy which includes managing money and understanding all the different ways to save. This was a partnership event between Bellefontaine High School DECA and the Logan County Area Chamber of Commerce. See Appendix 3

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Statistics to support the rationale for hosting the event. As stated previously there is a huge push to educate teens about their finances, however, we all know it is also important for parents to have a foundational knowledge regarding finances as well. The following are statistics as to why hosting a Financial Seminar was necessary. Only eighteen percent of parents are talking about school budgeting Seventy nine percent of parents see themselves as positive money role models for their kids. Only a small percentage of parents are taking advantage of the everyday learning opportunities about money. (Capital One). This statistic is a great example of why something like a seminar is so important for parents and the kids. The parents should be able to answer any questions their kids have about money management. Sadly, not many parents can answer all of the questions their kids have. This will make our community a better place when it comes to financial literacy and all of the components that go along with it. There are many benefits to knowing the education on financial literacy. With learning how to budget your money monthly, this will play a big role on disciplining your money choices. Limit your spending money. Dont go over the amounted needed to be spent. For example, eliminate the amount of takeout food. Be able to put a little amount in your savings or create a mutual fund to help with the future. This will help increase your savings as each year passes.

We do not have a specific age group target market that we are trying to establish because you are never too young or old to learn about your finances. Prior to the event we decided to create a chart of what we would like to see accomplished during each month.

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The Speakers. The next step was to identify the speakers for each topic; there were a total of ten. Darrin Haubert, Wells Fargo Advisors and Paul Benedetti, the Logan County Area Chamber of Commerce organized this portion of the event.

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Promotion. In order to create a better outcome than last year, including more attendance, we knew we needed to increase our promotional efforts drastically for our second annual event. We distributed 2,650 flyers to Bellefontaine City Schools students and parents regarding the event during grade card distribution as well as hanging window signs in local businesses to help promote the event. We and also we had coverage of the event on our local radio stations WBLL, WPKO and Shine FM. A representative from DECA also attended the Logan County Financial Aid Night on January 9th at 7 p.m. and distributed more than 100 flyers to families across the county. Our Event. In the past we have focused on mainly adults attending, but this year we wanted to get the students involved as well. We wanted our peers and their parents to be able to learn that with discipline, saving your money will make a difference. Your choices in spending money will be more reasonable and youll learn how the basic steps to a successful financial life were worth it. The 2nd Annual Logan County Free Financial Seminar occurred at Bellefontaine High school on the thirteenth of February 2014. Local business leaders conducted presentations on topics such as budgeting, credit score information, college savings plans, elder law/estate planning, identity theft, legacy/ funeral planning, life insurance, long-term

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care, medical and health insurance and retirement planning. Our chapter offered several worksheets and activities for both the partners and children of elementary and middle school to take home. Ten presenters from local businesses were present. Each one of the presenters was assigned a class room in the high school building of Bellefontaine. One student from the DECA program was also assigned to a presenter. The Free Financial Seminar lasted approximately two hours. A Kids Guide To Money Event. We also created a separate seminar for students in the eighth grade that taught them the importance of financial literacy. We provided pamphlets with fun activities that helped them learn about savings, spending, and setting goals. This was a great way to get them on the right path as they transfer into high school and have to start thinking about finances and paying for college. We presented the 8th graders with this information at Bellefontaine Middle School on March 10th from 8:12 a.m. - 9:30a.m. We passed out the pamphlets (seen below) to two classes of approximately 30 8th graders each. Both classes did multiple activities in the packet that focused on financial goals for their future. The students were very active in the presentation. This was a great experience for them and we received the following statement of appreciation from their teacher Mrs. Dinovo We especially liked how they discussed with the kids that they need to be setting financial goals and thinking about how to save money now. This was a growth opportunity for us because we got to practice our leadership skills.

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IV. EVALUATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS A. Evaluation of campaign Internal Activity Evaluation for our Primary Event. The Roy Hall assembly went excellent. The students where very interested in what he had to say, Mr. Hall is a phenomenal speaker and can really grab your attention. We received great feedback from students and teachers that attended the presentation. Students came up to Mr. Hall after the presentation and thanked him and asked for pictures and autographs. External Activity Evaluation for Our Primary Event. When the presenters arrived at Bellefontaine High School on February 13th at 5:00 p.m. for the Free Financial Seminar, speakers came to the cafeteria to sign in and get their name tag. One of the students from our chapter then escorted them to their assigned room and helped get them set up and to show them how to use the smart board we had provided for them in each room. At 6:00 p.m. the doors were opened to the public, they were escorted to the cafeteria where they signed in as well as signing up for what classes they wished to attend. We provided coffee and cookies to the participants while they waited for the classes to start. At about 6:15 p.m. they were released from the cafeteria to go to their classes. We had other DECA members close by to help people find their way to the proper classes they signed up for. The seminar went much better this year than last year there was a larger turnout than last year, not as many as we would have liked, but we still had more than last year so that was a plus for us. Everything ran fairly smoothly

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and the presenters had a lot of valuable information that seemed to intrigue the audience. We had a lot of positive feedback from the presenters and the people who attended the seminar they said it was a good learning environment and a lot of great information and the presenters said that they had a very active, involved audience while presenting their information. B. Recommendations for additional new activities for future campaigns Recommendations for targeting the student population. As a DECA chapter we had planned on having follow ups regarding the Roy Hall presentation. We planned on having a designated time before school from 7:30 a.m. - 7:55a.m. (aka Study Hall) for the students to come in and fill out a survey reflecting their experience at the assembly. Due to weather conditions we were not able to conduct a designated time for the students to come in to take the survey. We did receive very positive feedback so we did receives some sort of record of success. Recommendations for targeting the community. We came up with a lot of good ideas while talking about improvements for the 2nd Annual Logan County Free Financial Seminar. The attendance rate has been a continuous problem with the seminar, we had the idea of giving the guests 10 minutes before the seminar started to grab some food and take it to their class they chose to attend. This will assure more people will come from our community because everyone wants free food. Having more than one topic in each room to reduce traffic flow was also a suggestion; this would increase class sizes and increase the amount of information given to the audience.

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We feel like we did a fairly good job with promoting the event, but believe it would be a good idea to have stacks of flyers for the event in businesses so people who come in to the store can pick up a copy and have it for reference to put on their fridge instead of just seeing the flyer hanging up at a business.

Last year The Logan County Chamber of Commerce spent around $1,400 on the seminar with the ads in the newspaper and 2 packages of radio ads, as well as other promotional events and we still did not have a large turnout. We thought that maybe its the wrong time of the year or at the wrong time of the day so we may be able to adjust that next year. Having the seminar after taxes are due might create a larger turn out or even right before the FASFA is due for college to create a larger student turn out.

Changing the set-up of the seminar could also be of benefit for a larger turn out and a better experience for the people who attend. Having a set up similar to speed dating could be of benefit for people attending as they can gather more information from the experience. We would set up tables in our gym and have each presenter go to a table and create a 5 minute presentation to give to the audience and then a bell would be rung to tell them it is time to switch, after each group has presented people can decide to go back to the presenters and ask them questions and get more information, this will be of benefit for the presenters and the audience. Make it Count Financially enabled us to spread the word about financial literacy internally and externally and made a huge impact to Logan County as a whole.

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V.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.financialeducatorscouncil.org/financial-literacystatistics/http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/3313.603 http://www.banking2020.com/2013/04/08/fast-facts-financial-literacy-services-roundtable/ http://www.occ.gov/topics/community-affairs/publications/fact-sheets/fact-sheet-financialliteracy.pdf http://www.logancountyohio.com/ http://coolrilla.com/Society/Philanthropy/ohio_non_profit/ http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/39/39091.html http://www.bellefontaine.k12.oh.us/ http://www.examiner.org/ http://www.peakofohio.com/ http://coolrilla.com/Society/Philanthropy/ohio_non_profit/Roy_Hall

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VI.

APPENDIX Appendix 1.

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Appendix 2.

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Appendix 3.

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