Coins Club - MFS Economic Empowerment

This fall, the MFS Economic Empowerment Team delivered our financial education programming, Coins Club, to students at Mill Park Elementary School and Earl Boyles Elementary School. Prior to the start of programming, AmeriCorps member Nat Turiczek and Economic Empowerment team member Rogan Motis revamped the Coins Club–formally Money Makers– curriculum. The goal of this overhaul was to accurately express the changes that our 4th and 5th grade students would have experienced over the past two years, where an emphasis was placed on community building, cultivating empathy, and mutual aid. The primary goal of Coins Club is to introduce young students to relevant financial literacy topics, including currency and forms of exchange, community focused reciprocity, and how budgeting and saving applies to more than just money, but also to time and energy

These shifts were reflected in the type of hands-on, tactile activities that the students completed, including “budgeting” their time on a clock, much like creating a monetary budget. Students got to decide how and why they wanted to spend their time in a day, and got to do so in a fun and creative manner. Additionally, students focused on other forms of exchange aside from currency, where collaboration with the Hunger Relief program resulted in a mock food pantry! The week prior, students were shown a TikTok that explained the ins and outs of a MFS Hunger Relief food pantry, starring AmeriCorps member Clark Dunford. Then, the students were assigned roles that showcased the need to work together, where they got to act out a food pantry using food supplied by the Hunger Relief team.

Throughout the entirety of Coins Club, students earn dollars they designed based on positive reinforcement that encourages participation, connection, and safe and responsible behavior. The dollars that students earned were saved in their wallets–also created by them–so that in the last week of Coins Club they could budget, spend, or save their dollars at a market full of stickers, fidget toys, candy, and other fun prizes! It is the hopes of this team that the changes in the Coins Club curriculum will foster a more positive relationship with money and self in the future, while being intentional to enable the true excitement of Coins Club: “fun, making friends, and shopping!”