A group of Samohi students are spreading their love of all things financial to their peers through a new educational partnership with the Boys and Girls Club of Santa Monica.
The nonprofit organization Youth Entrepreneurship Association (YEA) has partnered with the club to create a summer program, Teenpreneurship, focused on teaching financial literacy to low income teens.
YEA was founded by SAMOHI students Mason Arditi, Justin Green, Olivia Pirrone, and Alex Green to educate youth by creating access to education about investment, business, and economics through entrepreneurship.
The group also created the Samohi Business Club in 2021 that helps educate students about stocks and other finances, as well as prompting students to create their own businesses. The Samohi Business Club has sparked creativity in students to initiate their own companies such as Admit One Clothing, Backyard Baby, Taiga Inc and more.
On Samohi’s campus, YEA and the Business Club hold career readiness classes, grant giveaways to student-run businesses and host a mock Shark Tank with a panel of student judges and the possibility to win $1,000 in funding.
Despite California being one of the economic superpowers in the nation, schools lack the teaching for financial literacy. In a study by Next Gen Personal Finance, it discloses that 1.5% of high school students are guaranteed access to financial education and 19.2% had no access at all.
"Our neighborhood is deeply underserved when it comes to accessing financial education. At the YEA, we strive to address this issue, starting in our home community." said Mason Arditi, Chief Executive Officer.
During Teenpreneurship, students will collaborate with others to create their own business that they will pitch to real investors. Towards the end of the six week program, a grant will be given to bring the students’ ideas to life. YEA believes the best way to learn is through hands-on interaction and they want their students to submerge themselves into the world of business by providing them with the resources needed such as money and mentorship.
"We lacked financial education resources at Samohi, but we wanted to invest our time this summer to helping out low-income teenagers who had even less access to financial education," said Arditi.
This year, they will have this program at the Club’s Santa Monica Main Branch and Mar Vista Gardens locations. Next year, they are scaling to 10 different locations with the Teenpreneurship program. Ultimately, they want to grab the attention of the state of California and implement financial literacy programs in education.
"We are trying to get students to find problems in their community and that is what they are going to base their business off of," said Olivia Pirrone, director of Marketing for YEA.
Teenpreneurship is available for teens aged 13-18 and will run from June 19th to August 1st. To find more information, visit the YEA website https://www.yeatoday.org/ or Instagram https://www.instagram.com/yea_org/.
"I want to teach that it is an attainable thing to anybody, no matter their background or family income," said Arditi. "I just want everybody to believe it’s possible."
Maggie Marks
SMDP Intern
