Health & Fitness
SECU-Sponsored Millionaire's Club Team Earns Top Personal Finance Honors in Maryland
The Millionaire's Club, a student team focusing on financial education, has won first place in the MD's Personal Finance Challenge State Competition.
The Millionaire's Club team from the Applications and Research Laboratory (ARL) – the centralized Academy of Finance (AOF) facility for the Howard County Public School System – has won first place in the Maryland Council on Economic Education Personal Finance Challenge State Competition.
The winning team contestants were all members of the Millionaire's Club at ARL, which is sponsored by SECU, Maryland’s largest state-chartered financial cooperative. As sponsor, SECU serves as the Club’s primary financial institution and helps with mentoring and club support.
The AOF team competed with 27 teams from across Maryland in a three-round competition, held April 11. The two teams with the highest scores then competed for the state title in a fast-paced "Quiz Bowl" round. The competition was held at Towson University.
Each team member was awarded $500 and an all-expense paid trip to the national competition to be held May 2 in St Louis.
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The Millionaire's Club is a high school level turnkey personal financial education program sponsored by the Credit Union Foundation of MD & DC, SECU, and several other credit unions and donors.
“By focusing on financial literacy, the Millionaire’s Club helps students not only to avoid financial pitfalls, but to prosper in the always-challenging financial world,” says SECU President and CEO Rod Staatz.
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Staatz explains that the Millionaire’s Club uses competitions and entrepreneurial activities “to deliver a meaningful learning experience that will provide lifelong personal finance skills for participants.”
In 2012, SECU’s sponsorship enabled the Millionaire’s Club at ARL to transition from an after-school activity to become a regular part of the class curriculum. The change allowed more students to participate and experience the unique financial literacy curriculum that the Millionaire’s Club offers.
Earlier this year, four members of the ARL Millionaire’s Club were recognized for their placement in the upper percentile of the U.S. Treasury Department’s National Financial Capability Challenge. More than 80,000 students participated in the nationwide competition.
The Millionaire’s Club was developed by professionals from non-profit banking, education, and financial literacy disciplines. High schools in Baltimore, Charles, Howard, Montgomery, and Prince George's counties currently host Millionaire's Clubs.
ABOUT SECU
Founded in Baltimore in 1951, SECU is the largest state-chartered financial cooperative in Maryland, with over 225,000 members. SECU is ranked among the top 47 credit unions for total assets in the U.S. As of March, 2013, assets were $2.6 billion. Headquartered in Linthicum, MD, SECU has 21 branches and 104 ATMs throughout Maryland. SECU also provides access to over 70,000 surcharge-free ATMs through the CO-OP and Allpoint networks. For more information about SECU, visit secumd.org.
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