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Every year around the holidays, KMUW News introduces us to some of the volunteers making a difference in the community.

Volunteer Educator Teaches Financial Literacy Skills To Last A Lifetime

Carla Eckels
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KMUW
Volunteer and financial literacy educator Bernestine Williams teaches students at Wichita’s Urban Preparatory Academy about various ways to count money. ";

Bernestine Williams really has a heart for children. As a financial literacy educator, she volunteers at Urban Preparatory Academy in Wichita teaching kindergarten to eighth-grade students the importance of learning about finances.

“This is my fourth year and I love what I do,” she says.

Credit Carla Eckels / KMUW
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KMUW

Williams spends a lot of time teaching through repetition, music and hands-on activities. She says when students get it, it’s priceless.

“We played this one game where they were paying bills,” Williams says, “literally paying the mortgage and paying the rent and paying the gas and their cell phone bills.”

Williams teaches several areas of finance.

“We start with saving and do the things that are necessary to say why they save,” she says. “Goal setting and spending come last. We talk about investing, and we talk about giving and charity.”

Williams says the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders will learn about investing when they return from holiday break.

“They’ll actually be investing in different companies, on a pretend level of course, and we teach decision making and insurance concepts," she says." To the older kids, we teach risk management and the difference between a credit card and a debit card.”

Williams is a former educator and small business owner. She has a passion for the children and showing the steps to manage money. She’s taught financial literacy since 2005.

“I was working for the 'Parents as Teachers' program in Kansas City and that’s where I got my training as a financial literacy expert,” she says. “The program that we initially launched was a program for lower-income families because some people think that if they are not making a lot of money, they can’t budget, save and invest. But the curriculum we were trained on was specifically designed for lower-income families, and so that’s really when I knew I had to get the word out because young people want to learn. They want to know about money.”

Credit Carla Eckels / KMUW
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KMUW
Bernestine Williams teaches kindergarten and first-graders about financial literacy in her class at Wichita’s Urban Preparatory Academy.

Students in her second- and third-grade class agree.

“The thing that I like about financial literacy is we get to invest, save and spend, and you can also be an entrepreneur,” says second-grade student Xavier Ellis.

Teaching financial literacy is important, and Williams says she committed to the students by volunteering to do it.

“It’s probably the number one skill that children will be able to take beyond high school," she says. “I also do it because I know that if I start early enough and give back, the skills and the concepts that I teach them will go with them for life.”

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Carla Eckels is director of cultural diversity and the host of Soulsations. Follow her on Twitter @Eckels.

 
To contact KMUW News or to send in a news tip, reach us at news@kmuw.org.

 

Carla Eckels is Director of Organizational Culture at KMUW. She produces and hosts the R&B and gospel show Soulsations and brings stories of race and culture to The Range with the monthly segment In the Mix. Carla was inducted into The Kansas African American Museum's Trailblazers Hall of Fame in 2020 for her work in broadcast/journalism.