Coahoma Community College News September 19, 2014 Moneythink Program Will Hold Meeting Sept. 30th Coahoma Community College has been selected as the first community college nationwide to participate in a nationally recognized program that uses college students to mentor high school students about financial literacy. The program's first meeting will be held in Curry Hall Room 1, on Sept. 30th at 11 a.m. Moneythink is an organization that recruits and trains college students to serve as financial mentors at their area high schools. As the organization moves into the Mississippi Delta, CCC has been selected to as the first community college to establish a Moneythink chapter. "We're excited about moving into the Delta-it's something that we wanted to do before, but were never quite able to pull it off," said Benjamin May, the Clarksdale program manager for the Moneythink. "We're excited about the resources we now have coming in courtesy of American Express and a couple other non-profit organizations that we've been working with to actually bring a completely unique program to the Delta." While Moneythink has already been implemented in major cities across the nation, a pilot program created uniquely for the Mississippi Delta will be unleashed in partnership with CCC as well as Delta State University. The only other program in the state is housed at the University of Mississippi. May said bringing on its first community college has the potential to offer new opportunities not only to the program but the entire Southern United States. "If we could create a solid foundation at a community college, that gives us a lot of room to expand all over the place-especially in the South and Mississippi. This carries huge potential for the program and the state," said May. "We now have access to more resources we were able to make a direct program for the Mississippi Delta ... because it's a little bit different from the other places that we serve, we needed a different approach. We're about to start a program at Clarksdale High that we're not running anywhere else in the country." CCC's new Moneythink chapter will be led by Deborah Carter, CCC Business Department Chair and Instructor. "(CCC Dean of Academic Affairs) Dr. (Rolonda) Brown and I are very excited that Coahoma Community College has been chosen to participate in such a unique opportunity in the Mississippi Delta," said Carter. Carter is in the process of recruiting at least 20 CCC students who will be trained and later teach a newly designed curriculum called Financial Capability, which covers topics like budgeting, saving and banking essential, to seniors at Clarksdale High School. "Here in the Mississippi Delta we usually don't begin educating our students about financial management at an early age, however there are numerous tests and data to indicate that if you begin introducing financial literacy early on, as they get older children will understand the importance of money and spending it wisely," said Carter. Since its inception at the University of Chicago in 2009, Moneythink has exploded into a national movement, with 28 universities nationwide encompassing over 350 mentors teaching nearly 1,500 high school students. Moneythink has received numerous accolades for its work and is funded by some of the most influential institutions in the world. In 2012 Moneythink was a White House Champion of Change<http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/03/15/abandoning-mediocrity-and-seizing-opportunity>, and in 2013 won a MassChallenge Sponsorship and was named a Hitachi Foundation Winner. "I think this is a great opportunity," said Carter. "If we can reach them in high school maybe we can help save them some of the financial hardship in the future." For more information contact Carter at dcarter@coahomacc.edu or interested CCC students can CLICK HERE<http://forms.moneythink.org/s3/apply> to apply now! SANDRA M. PHOENIX Executive Director HBCU Library Alliance sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org> www.hbculibraries.org<http://www.hbculibraries.org/> 800-999-8558, ext. 4820 404-702-5854 Skype: sandra.phoenix1 1438 West Peachtree NW Suite 200 Atlanta,GA 30309 Toll Free: 1.800.999.8558 (LYRASIS) Fax: 404.892.7879 www.lyrasis.org<http://www.lyrasis.org/> Honor the ancestors, honor the children. Register now http://www.hbculibraries.org/html/2014meeting-form.html for the October 26-28, 2014 HBCU Library Alliance 6th Membership Meeting in Atlanta GA!