Spokane Valley, Wash. - Numerica Credit Union’s “$tarting Off Right” Financial Education Program was awarded the 2019 Children’s Education Program of the Year recognition at the 2019 Excellence in Financial Literacy Education (EIFLE) Awards held in Denver, Co. last week.

In the award notification letter, Rachel Gordon, Executive Director of the Institute for Financial Literacy (IFL), said, “Your passion and dedication were made clear by your nomination. It is my sincere hope that through efforts such as yours, one day financial education will become abundant in our communities, schools and homes.”

Katie Scofield, Financial Education Officer for Numerica, not only represented the credit union at the awards dinner but also presented a session about creating a successful financial education program during the Annual Conference on Financial Education, presented by the IFL.

“We saw a need for financial education in our community and a huge gap in basic financial knowledge,” Scofield said. “So we set out to develop a robust curriculum that would empower future generations to have a better relationship with their money.”

Scofield further explained that through the development and execution of the program, they learned that there was a great need for a program that was not just a one-and-done experience.

“We found that if we came into the classroom several times, and spoke about several money-related topics, students increased their financial knowledge drastically,” Scofield said.

Recently, Numerica saw a class of seniors increase their rate of financial literacy from 55 percent to 72 percent over the course of 10 weeks. Each week a new topic was covered. These topics included: SMART Goals, Budgeting, Credit, Investing, Fraud, Check Writing, Social Media, Investing, Human Resources, and a Financial Simulation. This included a program re-cap to ensure full understanding of the materials.

In 2016, Numerica enhanced the program by offering two $2,500 scholarships to juniors or seniors who have completed the program.

“The scholarships are one more way that we can show our commitment to the students’ financial well-being,” exclaimed Scofield.

Numerica’s program is free and flexible. In 2018, the Numerica team taught 700 hours of financial education across 57 schools and organizations, impacting over 3,300 students.

For more information about the “$tarting Off Right” Financial Education Program, contact Scofield at kscofield@numericacu.com or call 509-340-6300.

Numerica Credit Union currently has over 146,000 members throughout Central and Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho and over $2.2 billion in assets. It offers a full line of financial products and services, including mortgages and business products, and is committed to giving back five percent of their earnings to the community each year. Numerica is federally insured by NCUA and an Equal Housing Opportunity lender. Membership is open to anyone who lives or works in the state of Washington or the Idaho Panhandle.