• Life in the State of Poverty
  This workshop is a simulation in which participants spend three hours learning about and coping with poverty.
• ¿Entiendes?
  During this simulation participants spend three hours learning about and coping with living in a world in which they do not speak the language.
• Strategies for Teaching Children Coping with the Stress of Poverty
  During this workshop participants explore how stress affects them and how they cope with stress. These insights are used to help participants develop strategies for teaching children.
• Strategies for Supporting Adult Learners Coping with the Stress of Poverty
  This workshop places special emphasis on how poverty creates crises and stress, institutional barriers, and the subsequent life disruption. Strategies for preventing, alleviating and coping with these crises and the stress they create are explored. This workshop is particularly effective in conjunction with Life in the State of Poverty as a daylong event.

For more information on trainings contact:
Nelda Pearson
npearson@beansandrice.org
540-633-2037

While the twice-weekly Food Distribution Project is meeting urgent immediate needs, Beans and Rice always seeks means of promoting capacities and independence. A survey of participaants in Food Distribution indicated a willingness and desire to grow vegetables but the challenge of lack of access to land. In the growing season of 2010, the project began by offering a container gardening opportunity to these folks. Thirty families received grow bags, soil, and vegetable seeds or seedlings of their choice.

Grow bags are used because they are light, portable, durable, and easy to store. Soil, fertilizer and seedlings are obtained from local vendors. The supplies will be distributed to participants with instructions and the option of a mentoring partnership with an experienced gardener. Each participant received four containers and a variety of vegetable seedlings according to preferences listed on interest surveys."

Families were thrilled with the results!

Financial Literacy is a big part of the Beans and Rice After School Programs. The AmeriCorps VISTA positions we have exist because we have the Virginia Individual Development Account, a two for one savings program for adults. All of the VISTA positions in some way have to address financial literacy and try to promote savings. For children in the Willow Woods and McHarg Elementary Programs this has been a challenge.

Children in general have:

• little experience with handling money,
• often can not discriminate quantity of coins from value of coins,
• have not yet acquired delayed gratification behaviors,
• do not understand where money comes from and how much things cost This is particularly true of low income children who have few if any role models for handling finances wisely.

Our fiinancial literacy project takes two forms with these After School Programs, Bravo Bucks and Financial Fitness. To both encourage good behavior and to teach about the value of coins we developed a the reward system of Bravo Bucks. These are coins (see e photo) that are given through out the program for positive behavior. Each color represents a different monetary value. We learned that the children preferred many coins, even if of the lowest value, rather than one or two coins of much greater value. This was a first challenge. The children love getting lots of coins which they keep in a little bag or little fanny packs. They like to take the coins out and touch them, stack them, and compare who had the most. This is where the issue of quantity of coin over value of coin became obvious. Service learning students from Math Ed classes at Radford University were instrumental in devising ways to help the children with this issue. The children are allowed to "spend" their coins at the Bravo Bucks store which we have two to three times per semester. This "store" is stocked with little things children love to own but frequently don't get a chance to, especially if they are low income. The items vary in value and children learn delayed gratification through finding out that if they save their coins and don't buy immediately they can get more expensive items later. We are trying to teach them delayed gratfication and the concept of saving.

The second program that is related to financial literacy is Financial Fitness. This nationally recognized set of eleven lessons are done with the children to further help them develop their financial capacities. The children are pre-tested and post-tested. In Fall 2009 we measured the following increase in financial fitness among the children in our After School Program at McHarg.

Results from the first pre-test came back dismal. Of the 30 tests administered the average score was 62.8%; with the lowest being 27% and the highest being 100%. The results of the post test showed a vast increase in scores. The average score of the 29 test administered was 89.8%; with the lowest being 47% and the highest 100%/ The average test was increased by 31 points. The most improved score being that of a 1st grade female who’s pre-score was 27% and post-score was 100%.

We think they have now reached the point where they have:

• Ability to discriminate quantity of coins from value of coins
• Ability to delay gratification
• Experience with handling money

The next step is actual savings accounts for the children by converting the Bravo Bucks into real money.

ROOTS