BERLIN – A financial education program presented to local students by the Bank of Ocean City has earned recognition from the Maryland Bankers Association.
For this first time in its history, the Bank of Ocean City earned first place in the Maryland Bankers Association’s Financial Education Awards program for the lesson its employees teach each spring at Ocean City and Showell elementary schools.
“When your peers compliment you, it means a lot,” said Nancy Bradford, assistant vice president of the Bank of Ocean City.
The program taught by Bradford and Bank of Ocean City Vice President Kathy Drew beat out those offered by several larger banks to win this year’s award.
“It’s a program we designed,” Bradford said. “It’s not a canned package.”
She believes that’s what caught the interest of the judges in this year’s contest.
Each spring, in honor of the American Bankers Association’s Teach Children To Save Day, Bradford and Drew, along with a couple other bank employees, visit second graders at local elementary schools. They ask kids if they have been to a bank, if they have ever received a check and if they know how to save money.
Drew tells them the history of piggy banks and how they got their name — from the pygg clay they were originally made from. She says the key lesson, however, is teaching the children the difference between wants and needs and the value of saving money.
Bradford plays a game with the students to illustrate that point. They are each given 10 pennies and then have the option to buy lollipops and pencils for a few cents each. Once they have all spent some money, she brings out the big merchandise — backpacks.
“If you’d known we’d have backpacks, would you have bought lollipops?” Drew asks, showing the kids how they would have been able to afford the backpacks if they hadn’t spent all their coins on candy.
“Educating children at a young age on financial responsibility is very important,” Drew said. “They need to know.”
That’s what prompted her and Bradford to resume the financial literacy program — which had been done by the Bank of Ocean City in the past — five years ago. Since then, they have devoted several days each spring to teaching the saving lesson to local second-graders.
“We love doing it,” Drew said. “It’s rewarding.”
Bradford said the lesson was typically well received by both the students and their teachers, who appreciated how well it fits into the class curriculum.
Having seen the success of the program at the elementary school level, Bradford and Drew say they are interested in someday expanding it to include a lesson for children at the middle school level.
“Schools don’t do enough of that financial education anymore,” Drew said.
Bradford agreed.
“That’s our thing,” she said, adding that they were happy to volunteer their time to work with local students. “We’re good at financial conversation.”
In addition to the award for the second-grade program, the Bank of Ocean City and Taylor Bank were honored by the Maryland Bankers Association this year for their cooperative effort to educate area seniors about the scams and schemes targeting the elderly.