ST. LOUIS – The St. Louis NAACP hosted its Wealth Wisdom: Financial Literacy Forum on Saturday. People in attendance had the opportunity to gain valuable insights about personal and commercial finance.
Shelby Bonds went to the event with her mother.
“I am an autism teacher at Stride Therapy and Wellness,” Bonds said. “I love my position. I love my job; I love all the kiddos. I just started a few weeks ago, and I just love every single aspect of it.”
As much as she loves to teach, she also enjoys to learn. Bonds will be turning 27 soon and has dreams of owning a home in the near future.
“Financial literacy is very, very important, especially as a young person,” Bonds said. “However, wherever you are in life, but especially when you’re young, you need to have the tools and the skills ready to take that next step because you’re not going to be young forever, and the seeds that you plant will eventually come to roost.”
The forum was all about being empowered when it comes to money. Organizers wanted people to walk away with valuable insights about personal and commercial finance.
“This here is pretty much just a start,” host Anwar Lee said. “I would like people to leave here getting some of their questions answered, but also with more questions that will help them grow and expand on what they already know.”
Lee and a lineup of presenters shared their knowledge, expertise, and success stories. Other topics of discussion included taxes, insurance, estate-planning and investments.
“We know that there are a lot of small African-American owned businesses who are just not familiar with how to access capital to help scale and grow their business and take it to the next level,” Lee explained. “So we understand that plays an important role in wealth generation as a whole.”
Lee and St. Louis NAACP President Adolphus Pruitt say they plan to put on these free financial literacy forums every quarter. The date of the next event is still TBD.