We are pleased to announce the Plutus Foundation’s Spring 2022 grant recipients. There were a significant number of submissions and we are happy to announce the recipients for this round.
Here are the grant recipients for the Spring 2022 cohort.
The LITeration Project
Dear Black Girl Incorporated is a small non-profit dedicated to empowering disenfranchised youth. We envision a community that allows youth to rise to their fullest potential through having the resources they need. The LITeration project engages disenfranchised youth from underserved communities throughout The Bronx and Harlem.
Our goal is to teach them through literature how to build their finances. We serve some of the poorest congressional districts in the Country. The students here do not have access to new books, there’s also only one bookstore that services the entire borough. So we decided to do something about the failing reading scores and the lack of knowledge surrounded by finances.
About the Founder
Ms. Cassandra Pryor is a mother, sister, and friend. Born in Harlem by way of The Bronx, she is proud to continue to be of service to her community. Instilled in her is the firm belief that it takes a village to raise a child and we should strive to be who we needed when we were younger.
She has made it her mission and the mission of her organization to teach, love, and empower disenfranchised youth. She envisions a community that allows youth to rise to their full potential through having access to all the resources they need. She believes all youth deserve a village of individuals assisting them to pursue their dreams and pushing them to be the best version of themselves.
Elevate Investing
The primary program offered by Elevate Investing is currently the Investing Basics workshop. The Investing Basics workshop is an in-person, six-week-long program held at local elementary and middle schools that covers the basic topics of investing. These topics include stocks, bonds, and cryptocurrencies.
Each session in the workshop consists of three segments. The first segment is an engaging presentation on the session’s designated topic, such as bonds, that incorporates student discussions and questions. The intention of this segment is to prompt the student’s curiosity and provide the students with a fundamental understanding of the presentation’s topic. The second segment is an immersive activity that allows the students to apply what they learned from the presentation. This is implemented to both strengthen the students’ understanding of the topic and help retain the information they learned. The third segment is a guided exploration that enables students to investigate online resources. The purpose of the third segment is to encourage students to use their curiosity and expand upon their learning of the topic.
About the Founder
Eric Chen is the founder and executive director of Elevate Investing. He is currently a high school junior at Oakton High School in Northern Virginia. He is also a Certified Financial Education Instructor with 40 Professional Development Hours (PDHs), accredited by the National Financial Educators Council.
At a young age, Eric Chen has cultivated a strong interest in finance, specifically investing. For the past two years, he has been a part of his school’s investing team for the annual Wharton Global High School Investment Competition. Outside of organizing financial literacy workshops, Eric Chen enjoys serving his community as an academic coach for an online tutoring service and event organizer for his regional library.
It’$ My Money® Financial Summit for High School Students
The goal of the It’$ My Money® Financial Summit for High School Students event is to present relevant financial information that is easy to comprehend for high school students. The event will include interactive activities and visuals that will allow the attendees to immediately apply the knowledge presented. It will consist of the basics of money management such as budgeting, saving, credit, and side hustles. This will be devolved to high school students in the local under-served communities in Hartford county in CT.
About the Founder
Patrina Dixon is a Certified Financial Education Instructor, International Speaker, and International Best Selling Author. She is an advocate for financial literacy. Patrina has a passion for serving her community and uses her company, P. Dixon Consulting to help individuals transform their lives by coaching them on money management strategies and how to monetize their skills.
Patrina is shaping the spending and saving behaviors of her clients with the goal of guiding them toward financial independence. Through her education received at the University of Hartford’s Barney School of Business and the disciplines she learned while achieving her Financial Management Certificate from Cornell University allows her to thrive at teaching the importance of financial independence. The It’$ My Money® journal book series and workshops allow Patrina to educate and enlighten youth and families on their finances. She is dedicated to molding the next set of financial leaders. Patrina is also a wife and mom.
WealthSavers Closing the Gap
Tailored WealthSaver® is a financial counseling firm with the mission to empower millennials (particularly the community of Black American millennial women) to make financial and investment decisions with confidence, ease, and autonomy.
The WealthSaver Closing the Gap program aims to foster positive and meaningful life-changing interactions with the Black American Millennial community. The program will host forty-five participants, at no cost, for four weeks to help close the racial wealth gap in our country through a virtual yet fun and interactive learning environment of millennial Black American professionals.
The 4-week program will focus on the following WealthSaver Matrix Topics:
- Creating a Wealth Mindset
- Credit vs. Debt Management in the age of student loans
- Basics of Investing & Homeownership to Build wealth
- and Wealth Protection.
About the Founder
Adrienne Taylor-Wells, AFC®, is the Founder of Tailored WealthSaver® and a first-generation wealth-builder. As an Accredited Financial Counselor, Adrienne is dedicated to helping millennials realize and attain their WealthSaver™ financial goals to build first-generation wealth. She has over ten years of experience within the personal finance world, including her most honorable assignment as a Financial Counselor contracted through the Department of Defense (DoD) military, serving our military personnel to ensure financial and mission readiness.
Presently, she oversees Tailored WealthSaver®‘s contract teaching financial touchpoints to the DoD (military) including the United States Coast Guard through a DoD-approved educator. Adrienne provides a fun and insightful financial literacy education via Instagram, YouTube, Facebook (all under @TailoredWealthSaver handle), and the WealthSaver Podcast available on Spotify, Apple Podcast & Google Podcast. Through one-on-one counseling and speaking engagements, she works with clients to equip them to build wealth and better understand their relationship with money.
We are happy to continue our support of a previous recipient:
Future Millionaire Money Camp for Kids
The Money Camp for Kids offers an engaging and informative learning opportunity from home.
The four-week curated learning experience is designed for students ages 8-14. Students are introduced to money management fundamentals and proven strategies to help young students practice and apply money behaviors and make wise money decisions using relevant examples.
Each week there is 60 minutes of live instruction which explores a valuable money lesson through playful activities, discussion, demonstrations, and videos. Each training component is designed to deliver financial knowledge and quick wins. The money topic is reinforced through self-paced activities and action items to be completed during the week before the next session of live instruction.
About the founder
Holly Reid Toodle, CPA is an award-winning author, speaker, and Certified Financial Education Instructor dedicated to helping student audiences manage their finances as responsible stewards. She is the founder of The Master Playbook, a financial education and wellness company that has educated thousands of people through her book, Teach Your Child to Fish: Five Money Habits Every Child Should Master, financial $martCards, speaking engagements, and online courses using sound financial principles, practical tips, and her personal experiences.
As a personal finance advocate, Holly is on a mission to motivate, inspire, and help others break the cycle of paycheck to paycheck living and create a legacy worth leaving. Holly’s philosophy is grounded in the basic principles of living debt-free, saving for the future, and investing wisely. She believes each person has the power to create a healthy financial future and is equipped to meet people where they are on their financial journey. She enjoys peach cobbler, Motown Classics, and traveling with her husband, Gene.
Thank you to everyone who applied for our Spring 2022 grants. We are always grateful to see the creativity, diversity, and expertise that continues to define this community.
Congratulations to this season’s grant recipients. If you are interested in receiving support from the Plutus Foundation for your financial literacy project, subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to hear when the next round of grants is available for submissions.
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