A Finance Workshop for you!

Igniting a youth is always something special to do. The opportunity was made available on April 21^st at this year's Ignite Conference. The conference drew in 100 middle school youth participants, 40 volunteers, 10 chaperones, and 10 extension staff members. This conference is a great opportunity to expose youth to things that may "SPARK" their interest. During this years conference, the participants got the opportunity to participate in 3 of the 6 available workshops of their choosing. Before arriving the students signed up picking an interest that they thought they might be passionate about. One of the workshops offered was a workshop based on finances called Reality 4-You, which was led by one of the 4-H team members. This workshop exposed the workshop participants to different financial strategies, investing in the stock market, information about saving and spending money. To make the Reality 4-You workshop more engaging a hands-on portion was added where students were given a set amount of paper money. There task was to make good spending choices while visiting several booths that provided services such as a booth for paying their bills, do I buy a cell phone, or a booth to pay for veterinary bills. Financil management is something that we found out that youth want to learn about. Out of the 100 students 46 middle school youth participants chose this particular workshop. At the end of the workshop, there was a post-workshop survey given to each student, and the results included: 82% of the workshop participants agreed that the workshop made them think about their relationship with money differently; 41% and 50% of the workshop participants stated that the workshop was either very organized or extremely organized respectively; 64% of the participants agreed that they wanted to learn more about finances.; and 82% of the workshop participants agreed that this workshop should be included in future 4-H Ignite Conferences. This workshop was a major success, and the 4-H team will consider keeping this workshop within the 4-H Ignite Conference rotation.