Fill out this form to email this article to a friend
Foster teens get to open accounts
By STEPHANIE HAYES
Published July 30, 2006
TAMPA - Indiannette Negron's life has not been picture perfect. Her mom was never around, she said, and she spent years caring for her sister before going into foster care. On Saturday, she got a taste of normality. Indiannette, 17, opened a checking and savings account at a Washington Mutual bank on Dale Mabry Highway. "I feel good," she said. "Your self esteem goes high, like, 'Wow, I have money in a savings account.' " About 30 Hillsborough County foster care teens opened bank accounts Saturday with the help of a program through the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative. The Opportunity Passport program is organized locally by the group Connected by 25. The program trains foster care youths ages 14 to 23 about bank accounts, credit cards, insurance and deciphering needs versus wants. Nearly 10,000 children enter Florida's foster care system each year. Once these children "age out" of the system, self-sufficiency can be a challenge. "I know aging out of foster care is not going to be easy," Connected by 25 executive director Diane Zambito said at the bank, "but I want to assure you that we've got your backs." Most teens deposited $125 into a savings account and $25 into a debit account, money they got from Connected by 25 for going through financial training classes and filling out surveys. Before bank employees met one on one with the teens to set up accounts, Washington Mutual's vice president of community development Sharon Hughes waved crisp bills in the air. "How would you like it if you deposited a dollar and someone else gives you a dollar?" she said, drawing cheers and claps from the foster teens. The Eckerd Family Foundation donated $75,000 to the program, matching up to $1,000 in savings for each of the program's 75 teens. "It's a really unimaginable feeling, to see these kids for the first time take control of their financial future," said foundation president Joe Clark.
[Last modified July 30, 2006, 01:18:53]
Share your thoughts on this story
|
News
Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
Print
Email story
Comment
Email editor
