By Dianne Anderson

Except for the very fortunate top two percent of Americans making over $250,000 a year, financial literacy is still an area that has left most working and low- and even moderate-income families stumped for answers.

Saving and growing money on a tight budget, where to invest, what to expect when buying a car or a home, how to double cash flow in the next six months are not just questions that usually keep parents awake at night.

Now the kids can worry about it too.

Rodney Watson, who has a 12- and 13-year-old, said his experience with recent local financial seminars to get the kids informed has been great for the whole family. They are learning to invest in different types of checking and savings.

“It’s the simplicity of the program, the checking and savings is something that my kids came away with, having to open their own savings account and invest with that,” said Watson.

In the workshops, they were given $20 to start off, cash they must double in six months in the business field of their choice, like cutting grass, selling candy or soft drinks.  Some of the kids in the program are thinking about selling artwork on postcards.

“Now my kids are scrambling to see exactly how they’re going to take that $20 and turn it into $40,” he said. “The program is giving them some ideas about how to make extra money, and taught them about mark-up.”
Watson, a church business administrator with Seven Day Adventist in Riverside, said that both his children and the new parents coming in are learning to follow assets and liabilities more closely through the Axis Foundation program. They’re also getting a new understanding of how to handle their business with games like Cash Flow 101, a financial game created by the author of the national best seller ”Rich Dad, Poor Dad.”

Cordell Thomas, founder of the Axis Foundation, said his main goal is to give local kids a better idea of what it takes to hustle through the bad economy when so many people are having trouble finding jobs or dealing with high debt.

Eventually, he wants to take his classes into local schools and present the program in a curriculum- based format.

In his class, he said the first thing he hands out to parents and kids to get them familiar are fact sheets of the top 50 ways people are separated and swindled from their money.

“It’s the simple ones like check cashing places and short term loans,” he said. “We try to hedge against it. We try to teach kids to save and the rules about compounded interest.”

Thomas founded the organization two years ago, and has since received several sponsorships, including Google and State Farm. He said that parents have become involved as much as their kids.

“Parents said they’re taking their children along to pay the bills or grocery shop so they can get an idea of what it takes to run the household,” he said.

Lately, one of their board members, a gourmet chef, is heading a culinary arts management and   hospitality program, and pushing to raise $50,000 that will send 40 youth through training at a local school. Last month, they held their first fundraiser.

So far, several restaurants have expressed interest in externships, similar to internships but shorter in duration. And the Inland Empire Cooks and Chefs Association will help provide the smocks, along with a monetary donation.

Over the next few months, he will start the process of getting students involved with planning a community involvement event for Martin Luther King, Jr. day next year.

He’s also trying to get kids thinking about where they’ll be 45 years from now, and the benefit of saving consistently, like with a pension or 401(k). He wants them to stay clear of the path that many Americans have been down lately--the road of hard knocks.

“If we can give some of our young people a heads up, I think we can have a win-win situation. It can lead to business ownership where they understand how money works,” he said.

For more information, call 951-249-3234, or see www.axisfound.org.