STATE COLLEGE — With the 2023-2024 school year underway, Kish Bank recently announced that it will once again partner with local schools to bring free financial education to central Pennsylvania students this school year through the American Bankers Association’s “Teach Children to Save” program.
The national program aims to help elementary and middle schoolers learn good savings habits and financial fundamentals at an early age through free, banker-led lessons.
During the 2022-2023 school year, Kish partnered with elementary schools, middle schools and youth groups throughout Centre, Mifflin, Huntingdon and Juniata counties for an extremely successful year of the “Teach Children to Save” program. From January through May 2023, 71 Kish employee volunteers visited 124 local classrooms and one Girl Scout troop to present lessons to roughly 2,600 students. Topics included the importance of saving and safeguarding money, tracking money earned and spent, the functions of a bank, forms of payment and more.
This year, Kish plans to expand the program to additional schools and locations, including Blair County. Kish Bank opened its first Blair County branch —at 615 Pleasant Valley Blvd. in Altoona — in July 2023 and looks forward to bringing one of its most important community initiatives to Blair County students.
Established by the American Bankers Association Foundation in 1997, “Teach Children to Save” and the Foundation’s other financial education initiatives have helped reached 11.6 million young people through the commitment of more than 275,000 banker volunteers.
