Hoover High School’s Junior Achievement Program has taken home another title of “Company of the Year” at this year’s National Student Leadership Summit competition. They've done so three out of the past five years.
"Team finlit" noticed there was a lack of education in schools on financial literacy. So it created a board game, “Budget or Bust,” to teach kids about budgeting, investing, saving money and more.
Gavin Williams is the CEO of "Team finlit."
“We wanted to think to ourselves, ‘What’s a way that we can approach this problem that is specifically targeted to kids, but teaches them financial literacy in a fun way?’” he said.
The team won not only Company of the Year, but the EY Innovation and FedEx Global Possibilities awards as well.
“Seeing our impact firsthand was a big lesson for us, and since then we’ve actually reached over 50,000 people nationwide and sold our products in over 13 states, and that was just in the matter of two weeks," Williams said.
Williams says they wanted to bring something new to the competition this year.
“Finance can be a personal topic for a lot of people, especially parents and different families," Williams said. "Everyone comes from different backgrounds, so you want to make sure when you’re approaching a topic as sensitive as financial literacy, you want to do it the right way. And for us to receive such positive feedback and those awards really proved that we’re approaching things correctly.”
"Team finlit" is working on filing to become a Limited Liability Company and expanding its product line and public outreach.
