MEDWAY — Principal John Murray is pleased to share that approximately 200 juniors and seniors at Medway High School learned basic financial and money management skills at the Medway High School Financial Literacy Fair.
The fair was held on Friday, March 11 and was designed to give participating students an idea of the financial responsibilities they will have once leaving high school and/or college.
At the start of the fair, students were assigned a random job, salary, education level and credit score. Keeping these factors in mind, the students then visited over 20 stations where they had to make the typical financial decisions they may face as a young adult.
The various stations included banking, vacation and leisure, transportation, insurance, community service and donations, furniture, clothing and more. Students made decisions such as whether they would live alone, with their parents or with a roommate, and whether they’d live in the city or suburbs; whether they’d buy a used car or new car, or choose not to buy a car; and what type of cellphone they would buy.
Students also established and contributed to an emergency fund and began saving for retirement through a 401k plan.
The overall goal was for students to visit each station and make decisions that balanced their finances and their quality of life.
“It is important for our students to know some of the financial decisions they will face once leaving school as well as know how the decisions they make will impact their future, and the Financial Literacy Fair is a great opportunity for them to learn about their options for many important decisions,” Principal Murray said. “Thank you to Social Studies teacher Chris Borden for organizing the fair and to our Social Studies department staff members for helping to facilitate many of the stations. We would also like to thank the local businesses and organizations who supported the event.”
The fair was funded by a grant through the Medway Foundation for Education (MFE), with additional support from the Charles River Bank, Dean Bank and Middlesex Bank.
“The Medway Foundation for Education was thrilled to fund the recent Financial Literacy Fair at Medway High School,” said Maria Stotz of the MFE. “We strongly supported the event’s mission to educate students on various financial and lifestyle decisions they will someday need to make. This is learning that is offered as a course elective, but we felt it was vital to expose all of our juniors and seniors to these important topics. The fair was lively, fun and interactive, and MFE hopes to see this program become an established annual event.”
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