Students Teach Other Kids About Money In New Book

The special group of Fairfax County students who are teaching other kids about how to save and set goals and they're doing so through a new book is called the seed that grew and so far the book is being read in a number of schools and not just here so let's meet the guys Dave is joining us as as I was shown in the end Austin's in the middle. And you guys are in Fairfax County right, yes, yeah, well, congratulations first of all on the book Dave I want to ask you first of all. This is all about finances and you know learning about the value of money and investing in and growth what where did you get the idea from him and why this idea. Yeah, so basically it started as a deck a project and while researching financial literacy existing in our County be swung that for their money of the resources were paying for high school students, but actually the habit based learning such as having patience and gratitude starts in the elementary school age. So we wanted to tailor a resource that was specifically for elementary schools and the psychology behind kid developmental psychology. So our book to see that group basically uses a metaphor of a seed that grows into a tree to teach students about key concepts such as saving investing differing between needs and wants and we're so grateful to have it distributed both globally and a wide County. Congratulations on that and for putting together and I wish I would expand on that a little bit because as I look on the table, I mean there's a number of books but they're not all in English. Tell me a little bit about the reach that you're trying to get in and where you've been able to play some of these books. Yes, so first to begin before we started the books we have to start with writing and designing the overall structure the books and for that we became self-published on Amazon kdp and we're grateful to have our mentor and advisor doctor gamma his action was a lot of experience in business advisory and project management through experiences with the World Bank group and through her professional network along with parents and the community we're able to expand and connect with the school's sponsors and businesses to raise over thousand dollars and integrate our books into their schools. And additionally after that we overall printed the book and held a virtual and in-person real outs with the schools themselves fantastic so how many languages is the book in and how many countries is it distributed in so far right so the book is currently in English on Hindi Marathi and Chinese and redistributed them to of China, India and Kazakhstan and Australia's fantastic all starting at your school and in your neighborhood of Fairfax County so Austin what kind of feedback you've gotten so far you know and what have you learned I guess through the process when you when you hear from people who have been able to read this yeah of course so in total we were able to just to be more than 250 books across Fairfax County public schools and through our read aloud sessions we were also able to measure a 74% increase in financial literacy but we didn't just stop there as I you have stated we expanded internationally to four different countries and we also adapted to their nor cultural and linguistic norms so that these other children in in countries outside of America would be able to experience and utilize our resources as well this year we also were able to take the first place victory in the Virginia DECA state leadership conference which we're extremely proud of but the most meaningful part for us was honestly seeing all the children so engaged with our book when we entered to the classrooms and we also want to make this like a huge part of the fcps curriculum as well which will continue to strive to do but I make it like a required course however like most children when they have like a required course like for like math science history they don't typically enjoy it you know, but when we saw our course they were constantly engaged and we're honestly super proud of that that's great congratulations. The award is right here on the table and we're happy that you brought that in to share with us as well and it's great because you guys are actually doing readings as well to some of the students in the classroom. So you said you were able to to raise some money or raise more than a $1000 which is a lot of money but it costs a lot of money to print all the books as well. Dave you're going next level now right so we're going to try to reach more more people without just the printed copies tell me about that. Yeah so we want to expand more globally but of course with expanding there's always the printing costs so in order to take our next step we wanted to develop into a take the concepts from the book and develop into a virtual simulation based game for elementary schoolers that teaches them how to kind of manage money decide between needs and wants and investing so our game is named TAYU that's You can also find us on social media. We're on Instagram and Facebook at TAYU Financial Literacy Game and we also have links for our demo. You can also see our demo there with our link and book a demo with us. We're always looking for testers and later on there will be you can have opportunities for corporate and financial sponsors if you want to support us in our journey. Yeah which is so so so important you guys are doing a lot at a young age. What grade are you guys in? We're rising seniors. Rising seniors all three of you? Yeah. Well good luck. Big plans for the senior year I'm sure right and beyond. Thank you guys. Appreciate you joining us today and of course if you want to find out more information just gave you some of the info. If you want to either get the app or reach out and contact and support or pick up some of the copies of the book itself. Thanks guys for coming in. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Job well done. Jacqueline.