How a Teen Founder Built a Safety Net for Foster Youth

So Foster Financials was created when I got exposed to just the needs of foster youth. My specific skill set has always been finance and financial literacy. So after a lot of conversations with emancipated foster youth and figuring out the specific needs that they have, I started sculpting a curriculum and some workshops that I wanted to do. And that really got the ball rolling to start Foster Financials. And we've kind of been going ever since. In a time where everyone's thinking so much about themselves and how can I make money myself, I think it's so important to start these things like foster financials, to make a change, to go change someone else's life instead of just making a monetary gain and changing your life. There's so much instability in so many people's lives that with foster financials, I feel like I've made a change. And because of that, I've gained so much gratitude. The thing that surprised me the most about working with foster youth would have to be just honestly the passion you look in the classroom and you look to your left and your right and half the people that you're learning with don't actually care about what they're learning but if you go into a classroom full of foster youth every single person is so passionate about learning I haven't seen a single person that didn't want to continue learning and they just want the opportunity to learn they want the opportunity to grow and if you can just give them that opportunity I've just seen the most passionate hard-working people I think what really gave me the confidence to do this is the support system that I have. I'm thankful every day for the parents and family that have talked to me about financial literacy. We've had these conversations my entire life. When I teach and I am talking to foster youth, I stress, I stress, I stress building a connection. It's more of a partnership for us. A lot of these people don't have that one phone number where it's like, hey, I'm going to the bank. How do I open a bank account? Or like, can you help me open a bank account? That is what our peer mentorship program is. It's more about building a pure connection and just having someone to fall back on. And I think that's the most important part. And that's one of the things that gave me the most confidence is the group of people that I've been surrounded with growing up. And that's why when I started Foster Financials, the peer mentorship program was one of the most important things for me. Every single person deserves to have that fallback, that community, that person that they can just go to. My goal in 10 years would create an opportunity for every single foster youth, at the very least in LA, to have the opportunity to have free access to financial literacy that we will create people that are stronger, smarter, and more confident in this modern world. And instead of throwing people out of the foster system, with no knowledge, nothing to go back on, I want you to have a peer mentor and friend that you can rely on. And then on top of that, not only have the knowledge to just survive, but have the knowledge to grow. That's what I want in 10 years. And if that can happen with two kids that is just enough for me and if it can happen for thousands of kids that's also perfect compared to like my brothers left the house it is just it's incomparable right like they're virtually just cast out you're on your own right and you're way too young they don't have the knowledge and they don't have the support and because of that they feel stranded stressed and it's just horrible but i believe that by tackling the financial literacy problem within foster youth at the very least i can at least create security like for example some of the basic things we're teaching is just like how to open a bank account how to create a simple budget so that you're not going into debt because debt can be the scariest thing honestly job applications creating a resume just these simple things that when you add them all up they become so big that it's daunting it's scary and honestly you don't even know if you're you're um the things you're learning are reliable so we're just trying to make this process way more streamlined way more simple and way more accessible for these foster youth and like i said earlier every single service we offer is free there's so many resources such as AI these days where you can just snap your fingers and create something so if you have an idea to change the world go out there and do it just have the confidence in yourself every single person that tried to make something meaningful was laughed at at one point look at all of your heroes i bet you a majority of them were told this is not going to work or you can't do this or it's impossible it's too hard right and they did it so I think just the hardest thing but the most important thing is just taking that first step and going for it put yourself out there and do it and if you fail there's gonna be three other ideas three other ways to change the world that'll follow and then just keep going keep building I'm gonna keep going I'm gonna keep putting myself out there and try