WASHINGTON (WUSA9) -- Instead of hitting the stores this weekend, several young adults hit the classrooms to talk about financial literacy one day after Black Friday. It was one of the many workshops that took place Saturday at the Thurgood Marshall Center in Northwest D.C.
"Either way you're going to have to pay $150 for insurance," said Tonda Bean with Wisdom in Minutes Seminars.
She was going over what money would need to be put aside whether you purchased a new car or a used one.
"It's giving me an insight on things I didn't know, a lot of things I didn't know, taxes, what you take out each paycheck, 55 percent on living and wages, I can tell the life after college is going to be stressful!" said 17-year old Upper Marlboro student, Delfon Hare.
The whole point of this is the make life a little easier for these students, who already know the struggle. ScholarCHIPS is the name of the non-profit putting on the workshops as part of the ScholarCHIPS' Life Skills Conference. The "CHIPS" in ScholarCHIPS, is an acronym that stands for Children of Incarcerated Parents.
22-year old Yasmine Arrington founded the non-profit about five years ago, after learning there were no scholarships such students even though the U.S. has the highest population of imprisoned persons according to various websites and World Prison Brief.
"I thought, I need to do something about this because my father also has been in and out of prison all my life, so I understand the emotional struggle, the financial struggles that come along with that," said Arrington.
Andranae Nelson is a Bucknell University student and conference participant.
"I only had my mother to support me like financially," said Nelson.
"At a young age I had to become the man of the house and provide for my mother, my brother, my sister," said DeRonte Craig, a Bowie State University student and participant.
The students involved have very different stories of what it was like with one person in prison. Still with one less adult in the home, Arrington believes that's one less caregiver to provide insight into the topics they discussed Saturday like sexual health, how to excel at work and finance, which is the workshop we walked into.
"I just mainly been just swiping my card. Just swiping and not necessarily saying, ‘Okay, I'm going to use cash for this.' So that stuck out and that's definitely been the best for me so far," said Nelson.
Along with the workshop, ScholarCHIPS also gives out scholarships. Arrington said they try to give out six to eight scholarships a year.
"It's a great foundation to help many of the young students get acclimated with the community," said Craig, who said it's good networking opportunity for young adults.
"It's empowering, it is very empowering," said Nelson, "just growing up from Southeast, Washington D.C., like I see how a lot of youth don't even have this opportunity."
Saturday's conference included around 10 students. Arrington said thanks to a few fellowships and a grant, they'll be able to not only expand size next year, but also outreach to include more students with different backgrounds since it's not just children of incarcerated parents that can benefit from this information.
"This age, this is where you're setting the stage for how you're going to move forward in your financial future," said Amina Carter with JumpStart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy.
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