ORLANDO, Fla. – This week on “Black Men Sundays,” host Corie Murray interviews Jamie Merrill, president and CEO of Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Florida.
They opened the conversation by discussing the Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Florida’s mission to break the cycle of generational poverty, where Merrill says some 85-90% of club families across five counties earn less than $40,000 annually.
“We have 38 clubs that span across five counties and we support over 12,000 kids — school-age, so ranging from the ages of six all the way to 18 — but certainly, we don’t just graduate them and then send them off, we help to make sure that they continue off on a good path and we have, even, different programs like Club Blue and helping them to get further connected in the next stages of their life, and even possible board service that they can do with us and helping them continue to resume-build,” she said. “There’s a lot of wonderful things that we do, we are always putting ourselves into communities where the kids need us most and we are very prideful in what we do, which is focus on breaking the cycle of generational poverty.”
[EXCLUSIVE: Become a News 6 Insider (it’s FREE) | PINIT! Share your photos]
One of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Florida’s programs, “Money Matters,” teaches financial literacy through mentorship and real-life scenarios, Merrill explained.
“‘Money Matters’ is an opportunity where our club members get paired with mentors out in the workforce. Whether that’s different financial institutions or financial advisors or whoever it is that’s helping us to run the program, they’re going to learn all of these different metrics like how to save money, creating and maintaining budgets, they’re figuring out how to distinguish between needs and wants, putting a savings cushion in there, what should make a purchase, what inflation means, all of those things,” she said. “What’s really cool, though, is once the course has run, we then do something called a reality store, and the reality store is where the rubber meets the road and where it gets real fun with the youth. And so we set up these opportunities where each individual club member is given a different scenario, and they have to play out that scenario of ‘life’ in the reality of what it is that they’re given and help to make financial decisions, whether it be purchases or child care, whether it be medical decisions. (…) It’s really helping them to understand the real-life scenarios of what has to be done and the decisions, the difficult decisions sometimes, that not only their parents go through and guardians go through, but that they’re going to be up against, and helping them to set the path at an early age.”
Hear the full interview and more in Season 5, Episode 13 of “Black Men Sundays,” and stay tuned for information about the latest “Black Men Sundays” turkey drive benefiting Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Florida families!
Black Men Sundays talks about building generational wealth. Check out every episode in the media player below.
Copyright 2022 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.
