There are many different ways to convey financial information to youth but it can be difficult to explain how so many financial realities are based on decision making. Well there is one program out there that is letting students make those decisions before they are real!
This week the gang sits down with Tena Lazano, the executive director of the Richard Myles Johnson (RMJ) Foundation, Tena is responsible for leading the Foundation, which provides resources for credit unions to deliver financial education in their communities. The Foundation serves credit unions in California and Nevada, and offers its signature program, Bite of Reality® which is a fun, two-and-a-half-hour, hands-on simulation that appeals to teens while giving them a taste of real-world financial realities.
There are many different ways to convey financial information to youth but it can be difficult to explain how so many financial realities are based on decision making. Well there is one program out there that is letting students make those decisions before they are real!
This week the gang sits down with Tena Lazano, the executive director of the Richard Myles Johnson (RMJ) Foundation, Tena is responsible for leading the Foundation, which provides resources for credit unions to deliver financial education in their communities. The Foundation serves credit unions in California and Nevada, and offers its signature program, Bite of Reality® which is a fun, two-and-a-half-hour, hands-on simulation that appeals to teens while giving them a taste of real-world financial realities.
[inaudible] Welcome to Talk Wealth To Me, a safe space podcast, where we chat about anything and everything related to personal finance, the information contained in this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. It does not constitute as accounting, legal tax or other professional advice.
Chase Peckham:Hello, and welcome to another edition of Talk Wealth To Me today, we had the opportunity to sit down with Tina Lazano. She's the executive director of the RMJ foundation, a foundation that supports California and Nevada credit unions. And they have come up with Felipe probably one of the most incredibly beneficial youth education platforms when it comes to financial literacy.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah, every time we do one of these Bite of Reality events, I feel like the students who go through it benefit so much from it, and it's so fun to do. Uh, and, and I feel that, you know, it's something that everybody who has the opportunity to do so should, should try and have a bite of reality for their students and their youth.
Chase Peckham:It really, really is impressive and happy financial literacy month to all of those here in April. And if you enjoy this and enjoy our other podcasts, please follow us.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah. Let your other friends, your podcast, listening friends know about it and help spread the word.
Chase Peckham:First of all, I just, I can't take you enough for joining us today. Uh, the RMJ foundation has come up with one of the most incredible education opportunities for youth when it comes to financial literacy that we have ever experienced. And I've been in the education for financial literacy industry for 11 or 12, almost 12 years. And it is the name of it. Bite of reality is truly that it gives these kids an idea of what it's like to have to make decisions that we all make as adults and the looks on their faces. Phil and I have done a few of the, at least four or five of these. And it's amazing the looks on these kids' faces. How did it come to be?
Tena Lazano:Well? So I didn't create the concept of a reality fair to start with. Um, uh, credit unions have been doing reality fairs for a number of years, um, by 2009, when I came across the concept. Um, and I based our program on a program that the, uh, credit union national association sells called mad city money. And, um, it's a very similar concept also, as you guys I'm sure know, to the junior achievement finance park concept, right. Um, so way back in 2008, 2009, I was looking for a signature program for the RMJ foundation to offer prior to my coming on board. In 2006, we really focused on, um, giving scholarships to small credit unions. So we're the state credit union foundation for California and Nevada. So all of our funding basically comes from credit unions in those two States and then the organizations that support them. So, um, we were looking for, um, uh, a program instead of just giving out, you know, grants. It was a very shotgun approach, um, giving grants to credit unions that were doing youth financial education programs, but we weren't able to really see a big impact. So, um, I was looking for a program that, that we could wrap our arms around. I didn't really want to hook onto another organization, um, because we wanted it to be our own. So I, I went to a meeting probably in 2008, um, where somebody presented this concept of a reality fair. And I really felt like that was something that we, as the state credit union foundation could take and make our own and deliver in a unique way to credit unions in our two States. So the concept wasn't, um, I didn't create that right. That already existed. I repackaged it. Um, so we took that mad city money program and changed the name. Um, I do get to Pat myself on the back of that name cause we started with Reality Bites. Right. And then it was like, well, that's a little too, uh. It's a little too negative. Um, so we just kind of turned it on its head and came up with Bite of Reality.
Chase Peckham:So give us the idea. You said that it was the idea of getting all these kids together and doing it in an atmosphere like that. How did it all come together where you came up with the nuts and bolts of it? Like what was the thought behind it?
Tena Lazano:Yeah. So the idea was that any credit union could buy mad city money or another reality fair program and create their own and recreate the wheel at credit union after credit union, after credit union. So we thought, what if we just take and package it and create a kit? So we created the first bite of reality kit, which is the physical materials that you need to put on a reality fair. So the concept, um, originally was like, Oh, you know, create, um, a poster to hang on the wall behind your station. Like if you're the housing station, you make a poster and then you'd put little props out on your table that, that represent that. Um, and then every credit union had to, you know, photocopy the merchant sales sheets that are the things that the kids buy from. So we put all of that into a package. We had pull up banners made for each station. So they're really big and noticeable. You guys have seen that.
Chase Peckham:Oh Yeah.
Tena Lazano:Um, so we made, uh, we laminated all the sales sheets. We created vests for the, um, volunteers to wear. So they could kind of, you can't always tell the students from the volunteers sometimes. So that really made the, the volunteers kind of stand out. And, um, we started with one kit and I would ship it around the state when the anytime a credit union wanted to do a fair, um, we're up to like 28 kits now. Um, so those are housed at different credit unions around California and Nevada. So they housed them for us so that any local credit unions in that area can borrow the kit, um, when they're going to have a fair. So, um, yeah, it just started out like that it's just the way for credit unions to be able to say, yes, I want to do a bite of reality. I want to do a reality for bringing that to my community, but it's really great that I don't have to start from scratch every time I can just, and we provide all the training to the credit unions. So we've got about 70 credit unions in California and Nevada that are regularly, you know, depending on what regularly is to them anywhere from once a month to once a year offering, um, a bite of reality in their communities.
Felipe Arevalo:And that's great. It's interesting that you mentioned there was, it started with everything starts small. It started with just that one kit and, you know, Chase and I have done, uh, several of them and, and it's, there's a lot to that little kit and you're, you're right there. You got the popups, you got the, um, you know, all the everything is laminated all looks very nice. Uh, and like Chase mentioned, it's always great to see the kids who come through, they do it all. And then the look on, or when they come back to you the, after the first, sometimes when they come back to you a second time or a third time, and then, you know, you, you upsold me at some point they realize like you really messed up my budget.
Tena Lazano:Yeah. They, they, they get the, um, the realization that, Oh, wait, you're doing this to me on purpose. You're trying to make me fail. And that's what we, you know, we say about the program. We, we tell the volunteers, we want the kids to fail and that's not as mean as it sounds because you learn when you fail. Right. You remember what that failure felt like. And, and that's what we say. We want the kids to feel that failure with money in our world, in our little reality where there's no long-term consequences, there's no real world consequences. So learn what it feels like to run out of money with us, so that when you're out there spending your hard earned money, you've got that kind of in the back of your head of, Oh, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to have that feeling again.
Felipe Arevalo:I love it as a volunteer. It's like, I get to play the bad guy. Um, and, and there's no real consequences. It's a learning lesson, but I get to play the bad guy and, you know, and say, what you really going to drive around that old car? Maybe you should get a new one. I mean, why not? You don't need any of that other stuff. It's a fun, it's a really fun activity. I always tell my wife like, Oh, we're doing a Bite of Reality. Uh, it's going to be awesome.
Tena Lazano:Well, and you know, it's so funny because when we're doing volunteer training, most of our volunteers are credit union employees. Right. And, um, I always have to tell the credit union staff, like you have to take off that white hat, credit union, you know, role that you play because credit unions are all about helping people, um, to become financially, um, healthy and all of that. And so we have to tell them it's okay, you get to take off that hat and be that inner salesperson and just be in it for the commission. Um, because that's the we we want the students to realize that out there in the real world, and you know, this is another thing we tell the kids, nobody cares about your money as much as you do, right? So, you know, the person that's selling you the car or the refrigerator or the, whatever, they don't care. If you can afford it, they don't care. If you can make the payments, they care about the commission they're going to make. So, um, we want them to understand that in our safe environment.
Chase Peckham:So give us an idea when a credit union wants to use, uh, the, the game, so to speak, and they're putting together a fair, what goes into that? What, what is it like, what do they have to do? And what is it that the kids are going to experience?
Tena Lazano:Yeah. So the credit unions, we basically tell the credit unions, you get the location, you get the volunteers, you get the kids, the RMJ foundation will provide everything else. So the credit union can get the volunteers from their own staff, from their community, local nonprofits that they work with, you know, wherever the, the, um, chamber of commerce, um, any place that they want to get the volunteers, the bite of reality is a credit union program. So it must be sponsored by a pro, credit union. Um, but the volunteers don't all have to come from credit unions. Um, and then the RMJ foundation again, provides everything else. Um, those physical materials, I mean, it used to be, and I'll kind of go off on a little tangent here because we used to give, um, a notebook and a packet of worksheets and a pencil and a calculator to every kid to walk through the fair and do track their purchases. Oh, and a checkbook, because they had to write a check for every station. Um, they had to manually keep their check, register up for every purchase that they took or that they made. And, um, by about 2015, um, that year we reached 9,000 students. That was a big year for us, which was the program grew first year, one kit, 137 kids. Right.
Chase Peckham:Sure.
Tena Lazano:We've just, you know, and then it just, it kept growing. By the time we were hitting 9,000 kids, I was like, how am I going to pay for the, the, each student material was costing us about 20 bucks a student.
Chase Peckham:Oh wow.
Tena Lazano:And as the number of, um, students being reached was growing, I, you know, we were kind of like, how, how are we going to keep up with these numbers? This is getting crazy. Um, and at the same time, there was some conversation about incorporating technology into reality fairs. Um, long story short, I was able to get my board to agree, to spend a decent amount of money and build our bite of reality app. So instead of giving the kids a packet of papers and a pencil and a calculator, they can just download our app onto their, um, their, or a borrowed smart device and be able to make all their purchases. Um, it's a lot more tech savvy. It's kind of where the kids are used to living on their phones. Anyways. We're no longer asking them to do the math. Well, math is an extremely important subject. That's not our mission to teach math. So we get really focused on the money management piece of it and the budgeting and the, and the good financial decisions, um, piece of it.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah. We never got to do a pre app.
Tena Lazano:Oh OK.
Felipe Arevalo:I got to experience it with the app. We never got to see the paper, but I can imagine, you know, then you got kids like, yeah, I still have money. Your math is off. Um, or vice versa. They're sitting there with their math and they're probably pulling out their phone and using your calculator anyways,
Chase Peckham:But there have been several rounds of the app. Right. I mean, it seems at least the last time we did it, which was about a year and a half, two years ago, year and a half ago before COVID hit. And we were allowed to do this in person. It was amazing how well streamlined. It was like the, the numbers were updated. Uh, it was more, uh, with today's what rent would cost. And kids were a little bit more because I believe, I believe that's kind of evolved over the years, right?
Tena Lazano:Yeah. I mean, we do, we, we're actually constantly making upgrades and improvements to the app. The, the dollar amounts is an interest. It's interesting that you bring that up because that's always a conversation that we have. Um, the dollars don't always make sense with a particular community in which the fair is being delivered. Right? Because we, our program is delivered everywhere from San Diego and San Francisco, right. Where very high cost of living to places like Yerington, Nevada, which you've probably never heard of before, but it's a little small town in rural in Nevada. So we don't have a custom set of prices for every community.
Chase Peckham:Sure.
Tena Lazano:What we tell the kids is, and the kids are smart. They know, right. They'll come up and be like, this is not what daycare costs in my community because my little sister goes to daycare, right? So we always tell the kids, look, this is a closed economy when we're here today. Um, the salary may not be exactly what you would find in the real world and the rents and the clothing prices and whatever might not be exactly. But the point is, can you make financial decisions based on your budget, right? Are you able to look at how much money you have and make wise decisions? And so that's how we address that. That's not to say that we haven't made changes to the prices of things in the past. Um, cause we have, we also have added a number of, um, features. We, in the last two years, we added a credit score feature. So now when, um, the kids download the app, when they get their"about me" sheet, the sheet that assigns them, their job and their family situation and all of those things, they also randomly get assigned a credit score. And so that credit score, um, matters when they go to the housing or the transportation table. Because if your credit score is too low, you can't buy a house. You have to make a rental choice. Um, by the same token, if your credit score is low, any of your transportation options is going to cost you an extra$50, just because it costs more to get credit when you have a bad credit score. So it's, again, it's not perfect to the real world, but it gives them a taste of how a credit score will impact your ability to make decisions.
Chase Peckham:Oh, I thought that that feature was huge because the kids, all of a sudden get a really good idea. It doesn't have to be perfect. It's just the idea of, of the concepts that they're going to be facing, personal finance and anything else that we do in life. It's about choices. It's decisions that we make. And we make decisions for ourselves on a daily basis. And to watch these kids have to make a decision based on their quote unquote reality at that time is amazing to watch. And what is so funny for me, and I don't know how many times we've been there on the daycare thing. And they always say,
Felipe Arevalo:Chase's favorite table.
Chase Peckham:Oh my mom, my mom. Will watch the kids. And you're like, does she know this? You, you think you're just going to give your kids to your in-laws your in-laws or your parents. Do they want to do that? I mean, has this been a discussion? Well, it's so expensive! Isn't it amazing what as parents go through it, it really is so fun to watch them have this discussion.
Tena Lazano:It really is, you know, my favorite line and you get one, not necessarily every fair, but every couple of fairs, there's always at least one kid who says like, can I put this kid up for adoption?
Chase Peckham:Yeah.
Tena Lazano:And it's just so funny because it's not, you know, they don't have that connection to the child. It's just this, this thing out there. That's costing them money. There's realism to it. So there, and, and it's just so funny to watch how the kids think, right? The things that they come up with, um, when faced with the situations that you and I face every day in our lives, when we're having to make financial choices.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah. It could have been, you could be working out in a circumstance where you didn't expect it to be great birth control, but it could be, cause it could stick in somebody's mind that they do not want to have that responsibility.
Tena Lazano:Oh my God. You know, that is so funny because when we first started, I started jokingly referring to the kid care table as the birth control table.
Chase Peckham:Really. It really could be. It's so funny to watch.
Felipe Arevalo:When we've done by the realities. I think that's Chase's favorite table to go, to go to the childcare one.
Chase Peckham:Oh yeah.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah.
Tena Lazano:It's always active.
Chase Peckham:It's really interesting to see too, on a percentage wise, how many people will want to buy the really expensive house, the super nice car and how it reality. That seems to be the mentality of a younger person of these are the things. This is what I know. And these are the things that I'm working towards and want. Uh, but all those other things that us mom and dads and grandparents, uh, pay for that they don't really even have a clue about. It's amazing to watch their responses when they're like, I got to pay for what?
Tena Lazano:Yeah. Yeah. When it's funny, when they'll come up, um, to the it's at the shopping table where you can buy your cell phone and they'll come up with the latest iPhone 12 or whatever, we're up to now.
Chase Peckham:Not even sure.
Tena Lazano:And be like, I'll take the basic flip phone. Right. And you're like, as the volunteer, like, what's that in your hand, are you going to give that up? You know, because they don't, they don't want to spend the money. That's like, Oh, well, mom and dad are paying for this right now. You know? So yeah.
Felipe Arevalo:Or they're out, or that's their last table and they've realized I don't even have money to cover smart phone.
Tena Lazano:Right. Yeah. It's always great. When we do the debrief at the end where we talk to the kids, we bring everybody back together and the facilitator, you know, chats with them about the things they learned and what was surprising. Um, kids are expensive is kind of the number one response in that session, but we also get a lot and it's so heartwarming. We get a lot of, like, I had no idea. My parents go through this every month, you know, I'm going to go home and hug my mom. Um, because it is such an eye opening, you know, it's an hour and a half, but it it's, it's, it doesn't teach them everything they need to know about personal finance and managing their money. But it's so eyeopening, it's it, it, you know, they say you don't know what you don't know. It teaches them to recognize that there's a lot, they don't know, um, that that never occurred to them, that they're going to have to think about.
Chase Peckham:And when they face a certain decision someday, whether they're in college or they're just getting their first job and they're going to have to make a decision on a purchasing something, whether it might be, you know, that really super expensive mattress that they can finance or do they look at other discounted type things, they might they'll remember that situation where they had to make those payments. And now all of a sudden they're living in a much different circumstance than they really would like to. So I think that that's going to stick with them, uh, through it all, especially when, I don't know how many times some kid would come up to me and go, how was I so dumb to get into credit card debt? And I said, well, hold on, let me, let's, let's discuss this. You weren't necessarily dumb, but life has a way of, of just sneaking up on you. Uh, and you're lucky that you had this situation where you got to see kind of firsthand that these are some of the things that you're going to run into in your life. And you're going to get that decision to get your first credit card and then what you do with it, you know, and if you use it to live on and, you know, because you think it's going to be great to spend it all at one time and then pay it back little by little that's, that's going to be a heavy burden at some point.
Felipe Arevalo:I always like tell them, you're lucky. You're getting to see that and asking yourself that question in the simulation, I had to ask myself that question in real life.
Tena Lazano:Exactly.
Chase Peckham:It's all funny now, but it wasn't then.
Felipe Arevalo:Well not in my twenties.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. Not at all.
Tena Lazano:One of the, um, one of the other new things that we added actually just in 2020. So we haven't had quite as much use of the, of the feature yet. Um, cause our numbers did dip a bit, obviously I'm sure we can talk about pandemic stuff at some point, but, um, we added a pre and post assessment or survey, um, in the app. So to your, uh, to your savings and, and, um, spending question there in the app, one of the questions in the pre-test we asked them is I, when I want to buy something, I save for it first. And then at the post, the question is when I want to buy something, I will save for it first. And in the pre-test about 50 to 60% of the students say, yes, I do save before. I want to buy something. When we ask intent at the end of the session, um, about 95% of the students answer, yes, I will save, um, you know, for, for a purchase that I want to make. So we've, we were just starting to get the statistics to show. Um, but at least we've changed their intent about what they want to do going forward after having been,
Felipe Arevalo:I would venture that, that initial 50%, some of those are probably students who just don't have a credit card yet, and they don't have a choice.
Tena Lazano:Right. Good point.
Felipe Arevalo:Because that was me until I got my first credit card. And then, and then I didn't have to save Anymore.
Chase Peckham:Well, it is so interesting. The conversations that you get to have with a lot of these students afterwards, especially if you have an opportunity to tell your story a little bit. And, and I, and the reason I even got into this industry, eventually, it was just because I got myself into a lot of credit card debt at a younger age, and it took me forever to pay it all off and get out of it. And I just want, I don't want kids to make those same mistakes that I did. And in credit card debt doesn't care where you come from. It doesn't care who you are. If, if you decide to use it and you're using more of it than what you're bringing in, you're gonna, you're going to be in trouble. And, and, and that was really interesting for them to be able to, go Oh my gosh. So these, these people actually did get in trouble by doing this. And they, they learn, they think there is kind of an aha moment that they get from it.
Tena Lazano:Absolutely. You know, it's always great. Um, the facilitators that we have at all of these, you know, 70 ish credit unions that are, um, that provide the program to watch them in action, having, you know, those conversations with the kids at the end, to, to be able to be very open about their own past financial mistakes. It, it really does make a difference because they're looking at somebody that's come in, you know, from the financial world, bringing them this financial education and to be able for the kids to see that we didn't all start out perfect. Right. We all made mistakes and we're here trying to make sure that they don't make those same mistakes. Um, that makes an impact. It really does. And it's really great to see our program, you know, credit unions deliver them to whatever communities or whatever elements of the community makes sense for them. Right. So we've got credit unions that go into high schools exclusively. We've got credit unions who work with nonprofit groups after school programs, boys and girls clubs, foster youth programs. Um, I have my, my story that I like to tell when I'm doing, um, training to new credit unions, that haven't done the program when we were first getting started. So this was way back, probably in 2010, um, a credit union up in San Jose was doing the program for, um, a group of foster youth who were about to age out of the program. And, um, I went up, you know, flew up, brought my kit with me back in the day when I had one kit. Um, it was an evening program. And, um, it was this credit unions first event. So I played the facilitator. So I kind of was the emcee and, uh, explain what we were doing to the kids. And as you guys know, we don't really explain a whole lot. We want them to get taken by all the sales pitches and stuff. Um, anyway, so I sent all the kids off and like, okay, go shop and go to your stations. And there was one girl sitting down still, she hadn't got up. She was a tough looking character. Um, very, had, had a very much of a, uh, uh, block wall around her emotionally.
Chase Peckham:Sure.
Tena Lazano:Um, and I went up to her and I said, Hey, you're not shopping. You know, What's going on? She's Like, I don't know what to do. I don't know what I'm doing here. So I sat down with her and we went through, at that time, it was the whole worksheet, right. So we went through the whole worksheet, figuring out her, her income and her imaginary spouse's income. And we did the whole worksheet. We got to her, you know, starting balance of what she could spend. And, um, I said, okay, you know, now let's go shop. And she, and she got this, this, um, attitude around her, I guess that was like, you mean, I'm not done. There's more, I have to do more. And I said, yeah, you know, you need to go to each of the stations and make your purchases. And she was just like, no, not, you know, not going to do it. And I said, do you want me to go with you to the first station? And her entire demeanor changed, she just kind of melted. And she looked at me and she said, you would do that. And I'm like, yeah, come on. Let's go. You know, let's go. So I took her to the housing station, waited with her until the housing, you know, the housing volunteer, um, engaged with her. And then I walked away. And the two ladies who were in charge of the program, the, the foster youth program, uh, came and talked to me and they said, you know, this girl outside, which I didn't see had completely pitched a fit, wasn't going to do it. Didn't want to go in. This was stupid. Don't want to do it. Um, you know, but they said, no, you know, you're not going to get your points or your, you know, credits or whatever you have to come in. And she had zero intention of doing this program, but the difference was, as they said to me, they're like, we get paid to care if you will. Right. They know this is our job. She said, but for people to come from the outside and volunteer their time and, and be willing to help them, it was really impactful. And so that story that, you know, that has stayed with me all these years, like when I ever wonder, are we making a difference? You know, I think back on that girl. And I think, you know, and it's not me, it's all of the credit union people that are out there doing this program are making these impacts that they may not even realize they're making, I got to have the, you know, the luxury of, of actually kind of hearing about it from, for that one particular girl. But, but this program, all of these students, and, you know, before the pandemic in 2019, we reached, um, 30,000 students just in California and Nevada. Um, and now our, our app is available actually to be licensed out by credit union, other state credit union foundations and stuff nationwide, um, to help them deliver the program better. But my point is, you know, the, we don't know where the kind of impact that we're having on each of these students. But if, you know, if one in a hundred is making the impact, you know, that, that we get to see that. I think it's really great.
Chase Peckham:It really is. And I know that what the work that the California jumpstart board, which is what you're a part of, uh, and have been for quite a long time and the education that we do for teachers and then students as well, but in our organization where we do these, one-offs, it's hard to get people into one place and do it. And when you get somebody, when you spend an hour, we're hoping that they get just some of the concepts out of it, like something sticks with them, but when they get an opportunity with their peers to walk around and kind of really get involved in the decisions that they're making, and then come back and have to figure out how do I make my budget stretch, or how do I make this work within my budget really tends to have a profound effect. And the fact that they get to speak with all their other peers and talk with them about, well, what did you have to do in this situation? I think lends itself to reality that we, as, as adults, I don't know about you. I mean, I may not set up in a meeting with my friends, but I'll say, Hey, in this situation, and you're looking for daycare, Hey, do you have any good recommendations that are safe and somewhat affordable and blah, blah, blah. We do have those conversations with other people and we get referrals in real life. So it is okay to talk about money. It is okay to, to ask for help. And I really think that that's what bite of reality does. So, so well, uh, is that part of it is taking away, uh, the, you know, I have to be good at math to do this.
Tena Lazano:Yeah. Yeah. Well, and you know, the other piece of it and, and, you know, I can't take credit for this, but the fact that it's interactive, right. It's a simulation it's, uh, it, it's not in that, you know, that's another thing way back in the day, I used to be the facilitator for a lot of these. I don't get to do that as often anymore. Um, but it would be like, you know, we could sit and talk to you for an hour and a half about budgeting and why that's important, or you can get up and, you know, learn about it.
Chase Peckham:Exactly.
Tena Lazano:And actually do it and live it. And actually we save that for the end, not the beginning.
Chase Peckham:Right.
Tena Lazano:Um, but, um, but you know, kind of like, was this better than me talking to you for an hour and a half about budgeting right now? You've got to actually experience it. And so experiential learning the catch phrase there. I mean, it really is so true. And it, you know, I think because they got to feel the feelings, one of the things that we also do, you know, sometimes there's the lines will back up at certain stations and the tendency is to like, Oh no, the lines are backed up. Right. We need to move kids around. We need to make sure that we're herding, no part of the, part of the stress of having to wait that builds. Right? That's all part of the emotional, um, piece of it that we're really trying to embed in them is, you know, let them have to wait, add a little anxiety because they know they're running out of time. They still have to go to a couple more stations.
Chase Peckham:Yes.
Tena Lazano:That's part of it that helps us, um, embed those feelings in them. I think so.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah, by the time they get to the front of the line, they might not even be paying that much attention to, you know, which car or which here's just take this one. Dude you'll be all right? This is a fun car. You'll, you'll be all right. And okay. Sure. And then, cause they're in a hurry and then they come back and they realize like, man, that wasn't the Right move Yeah. There's that sense of urgency, especially if they, if you get to it towards the end of the time period. Um, and, and there's still lines at some of the stations.
Chase Peckham:I love it too. They said, Oh, I'm going to take the bus. And you're like, are you really though?
Felipe Arevalo:The worse is when they say I'm going to send my spouse on the bus.
Tena Lazano:That's right. That's the thing at the end, when at the debrief, this is my favorite part. Raise your hand. If you bought yourself a car and your spouse, a bus pass, all the hands go up, like at least half a dozen to it. And, you know, depending on your crowd, right. But at least 10% of the kids are buying themselves a car and their spouse bus pass. And then you always hear one little boy, who'll be like, I bought my wife a car and I got myself the bus pass,
Chase Peckham:Smart man, he's going to stay married.
Tena Lazano:And that's what we say. see girls he' a keeper.
Chase Peckham:That is so good. Tina, tell us a little bit about the RMJ foundation and how it came to be and how it got into the bite, the Bite of reality world.
Tena Lazano:Absolutely. So, um, like I said, we're the state credit union foundation for California and Nevada. Um, we were actually established in 1958. So we've been around for a very long time, um, and established as a, an education foundation. Um, and so for many years long before my time, um, I think I mentioned earlier, you know, a lot of focus was on helping small credit unions educate their steps. So it was a lot about giving scholarships to a small credit union to be able to send their staff to a seminar or a webinar, um, to help them better serve their, their.
Chase Peckham:Communities.
Tena Lazano:Members and that sort of thing. Um, and by the time I was hired on in 2006, um, they had already decided the board had already decided that they really wanted their focus to be unused financial education. So they carved out this very narrow piece of financial wellbeing, right. And just wanted to focus on financial education for youth. And so, um, the idea that at that time was, was what I called community service grants. So a credit union that was doing a youth financial education program could come to the foundation and ask for a grant to help pay to deliver that program, whatever it was. So, um, so like I said, that was a very shotgun approach. We weren't really able to measure our impact. Um, we couldn't really tell how many, you know, young people were being reached by our dollars. Um, so, you know, like I said, um, and around 2006, 2007, the board kind of charged me with find something that can be our, um, our signature program, find some way that we can be more, more in control of the impact that we're having. So it actually took me a couple of years of, you know, looking at different programs and ideas and projects to, to come across this, this reality fair, um, concept and then, you know, turn it into to what it became. So, so that's kind of how we ended up, um, and, and bite of reality by all means is our signature program. Um, we also are focusing on, um, we actually are just launching today, um, uh, uh, biz kids showcase. So I don't know if you all are familiar with biz kids. Um, that's a PBS television show. That's been underwritten by credit unions since its start back around the same time, actually around 2006, um, by the same producers that do bill Nye, the Science Guy.
Chase Peckham:OK.
Tena Lazano:And, um, so it's, uh, it's, if you are familiar with bill Nye. Yeah. Um, and that show it's got that same kind of fun feel. The difference is, um, the, the cast is all kids, so it's all peer to peer, um, heavily focused on entrepreneurship, but also with a lot of financial education lessons built into it. Um, and so credit unions were able to underwrite that the entire, I believe it's six seasons, um, that's available on, um, various PBS stations, but also there's, um, curriculum behind it. So the, the producers created with input from credit unions, um, lesson plans that go with each episode of the program. And so that's one of the, uh, one another offering, I guess, that I would say that we provide to credit unions and then this concept of, uh, uh, biz kids showcases and entrepreneurship contest. Um, so, um, we're pro we're in California and Nevada, we're doing statewide competition for each of the two States so that students can go on and, um, create a business plan, watch a couple of webinars, um, and then, uh, create some showcase for their business plan, whether they do a short video, whether they create a free web site on like GoDaddy or one of the free website things, or create a physical, um, you know, science fair kind of three panel, um, display that they can, um, submit. So, so we're just launching that, like I said, for April being financial literacy month financial capability month, um, that that contest will be going on through April.
Chase Peckham:I loved that you said financial capability. That's one of my, my favorite things, financial literacy, Googles well, but that's really what it is. It's capability
Felipe Arevalo:This will be our first podcast episode in April. So.
Tena Lazano:Oh fantastic.
Felipe Arevalo:April 2nd is when, when this one will be going live.
Tena Lazano:So perfect timing.
Felipe Arevalo:So we're in financial literacy month, if you're listening to this.
Chase Peckham:Yes, we currently are. So yeah, absolutely. Tina, you mentioned COVID very briefly. I think I'd be remiss if we didn't ask, uh, how has that affected by everybody's staying at home? Obviously we can't do the fairs. We can't be in person. Uh, how did you guys get around that? And I think we all saw, I mean, as great as this zoom is, uh, and we found that we can reach a lot of people this way as well. I don't, I think at least Phil and I have found we've done hundreds of workshops in COVID and we still don't think the impact is quite as much as when you're in person with them. Uh, but how did, how did you guys get around that and what do you see the future uh, what's on the near future for Bite of reality?
Tena Lazano:Sure. So completely agree with you. Um, a couldn't do in person, right? As of April or March. I don't know, 12 13th last year.
Chase Peckham:Yeah just passed the one year anniversary.
Tena Lazano:I know it was a complete cutoff. So for, for the latter half of March and April of 2020, we had to cancel in-person bite of reality events that would've reached like 9,000 students just boom, done off the calendar. Um, so, uh, we reached out to our app developer that has, you know, that, that does the bite of reality app for us and said, help us come up with a way to do something, you know, that we can continue to do these fairs. Now, granted the impact isn't as strong as an in-person fair, but we decided it was better to do something than nothing. So, um, we, we made it just a few minor tweaks to the app where an in-person fair, um, when your credit card payment, for example comes, do you want that to happen randomly? Cause we send the kids to the credit union table and you don't want all 300 kids going to the credit union table at once, but if you're doing a more linear online remote version of the reality fair, it's nice to have all of these experiences happen at the same time for everybody. So, um, our fickle finger of fate, which two, um, events that will pop up one kind of good news, like, Oh, you got money in another, um, Oh, something happened and it's going to cost you money. Like you got a flat tire or something like that. Again in an in-person fair, those happen randomly throughout the event, we tweaked it so that they would all happen at the same time. And then we created a PowerPoint to start just, uh, a PowerPoint that basically walks the kids through. So the concept was, you know, have your phone with the app on it, join your classroom, zoom, um, or a credit union, you know, zoom, however that works out and then have the PowerPoint walk the kids through doing the fair. It works. If you don't get as many kids running out of money, it's not quite the same, but at least it's something right. And then a couple of credit unions have really taken and run with it. So we've got now a couple of credit unions who are literally doing breakout rooms and having a volunteer in each breakout room.
Chase Peckham:Oh, wow.
Tena Lazano:Not using the remote version, but using the in-person version of the app. Um, and having the kids just go from room to room, I actually got to, um, be the housing salesperson about two weeks ago in one of these affairs. And it was again, not as great as an in-person, but much better than the more linear, like here's a PowerPoint. Right. And watch. So I had, uh, I was able to share my screen and I had the merchant sheet up for the, um, uh, as my shared screen. And as the kids came in, I just chatted with them. I chatted them up about, you know, buying their house and what's dream house, where are we going to buy today and give them their codes individually as they made their decisions. And then once they made their purchases, they, they were able to navigate themselves from breakout room to breakout room.
Chase Peckham:Oh that's awesome.
Tena Lazano:To go and, and make their purchases. And that now is my preferred way if we're going to do remote.
Chase Peckham:Right.
Tena Lazano:Um, so where, where we are, where we're going. Um, I anticipate that even when schools are back in session, there's going to be a lag time between everybody's back in school and Oh yeah. Bring in 30 volunteers and we'll jam 300 kids into a high school gym. I don't think that's going to happen overnight. Um, so I feel like the, the, um, the need for doing the remote fairs is going to live with us a bit longer. My preference is as soon as we can get back in person, we should do them in person. But I think we learned some, you know, equity and inclusion lessons through this pandemic. Um, a lot of communities that maybe couldn't be reached with our program before now, maybe can, because we know we have a remote fair as an option, again, not the first choice, but if you're, you know, a small community and you've got maybe only a credit union branch, and there's just not enough staff to make it happen. Um, let's look at doing a remote version. The other thing is a classroom version. So we're right now working on. Um, right now we support, um, you know, uh, I phones Google phones and Amazon we're building a web-based version right now, um, just to mirror the app. So it's not like anybody can go onto a website and do the bite of reality on their own, but simply pull up a browser and do the exact same functions on a browser. So if you're in a classroom situation, you can have your PowerPoint and have the kids sitting at their Chromebook or whatever laptop.
Chase Peckham:That's fantastic.
Felipe Arevalo:That's awesome.
Tena Lazano:So that's, um, and, and hopefully that's gonna help too. Um, some, we always have loaner tablets for in-person fairs. In case kids don't have a smartphone, can't download the app or won't download the app. Um, and a lot of it is locked down.
Felipe Arevalo:Or battery died.
Chase Peckham:Right.
Tena Lazano:Um, or don't don't have enough memory, the biggest thing, right. Or they're worried about the data or, you know, different things like that. So, um, if we've got the website as a backup, like a back pocket, like a kid comes up and says the doubt, the app just won't download, well here, use this QR code and just go to this website and now you're good to go with everybody else. Um, so it'll be another tool in the toolbox.
Chase Peckham:That's fantastic. Well, you guys are doing amazing work and, uh, you know, just the fact that we've, we've had partners that are credit unions that have, you know, we've been there as volunteers and been able to do that and to experience it, uh, is, is really something that I, every adult should, should go through. That experience once to just, if anything, remind yourself of what it was like when you were a kid and you were making these choices because it is really, I hate to say it, but funny. I mean, you, you really do kind of take yourself into it and just go, you have no idea. The mistakes that I made when I was this age.
Tena Lazano:Right.
Chase Peckham:Yes.
Tena Lazano:And it's so funny because in the, you know, again, in the beginning, we were like, we'll the volunteers like it's kind of stressful. You know, there's a lot going on. Will they want to do it again? Right. And I know the volunteers, we, you know, they almost get as much out of it as the kids do. They love it.
Felipe Arevalo:I love it.
Tena Lazano:Once somebody has volunteered for the program, see you become, you know, spokespeople for the program.
Felipe Arevalo:I love it, every chance that I, every chance we get to do Bite of Reality volunteer for bite of reality, I love it. It, you know, like I mentioned, it gives me a chance to, to be that financial, bad guy and to try and mess up someone's budget. I spend all day, every day you know trying to keep people from making those mistakes. It's kind of fun to play the other side and be like, I'm going to teach you by really making you make the wrong decision here. And I love it when people in the, after in the debrief, you know, someone raised their hands and be like, that guy messed me up twice.
Tena Lazano:Yes. Oh my god that's that is so much fun. We having the kids be like, who was the, who was the person who tricked you the most? And there's always one, right? There's always one in the group that half the kids are like that guy right there.
Chase Peckham:Well, thank you. And continued success to you or the organization. And, uh, hopefully we'll get a chance to go do one of these Bite of realities again here relatively soon in person.
Tena Lazano:Sounds great. Thank you guys so much. This was so much fun.
Chase Peckham:Thank you.
:Thank you.[inaudible].