LOUISA COUNTY, Va. -- While some kids eat salads in the Louisa High School cafeteria, there's a small corner of the cafeteria where students learn about cabbage, green, cold-hard-cash. Lion Nation is a student-run branch of the UVA Community Credit Union that's been doing business and teaching kids about finances for the past ten years.
"You learn by doing, right?” UVA Community Credit Union spokesperson Cassandra Riggin asked. "Like we do, we learn by doing. And if students can learn in the classroom and then do on their own, they're going to be more financially capable as adults."
Business teacher Amy Meadows said Louisa High School is part of a resurgence in career and technical education for students who may or may not go on to college.
"We see a lot of things that kids are lacking when they leave," Meadows said. "Eye to eye contact, being able to carry on a conversation, these are skills that when they're faced with doing it themselves, they're learning it and that's going to stick with them."
Cassandra Riggin, Amy Meadows, Rob Cardwell
Meadows said through the bank, students are learning how to manage savings and checking accounts and credit cards, but they're also learning life skills.
"That's teaching them to be able to, when the appropriate time is, to do their classwork and when to put on that banker had and to that as well."
Senior Marcus Orr said working as a teller at Lion Nation has helped him in many ways.
"It's helping me balance my school time and working here, trying to put that together as one."
"They're more likely to save," Riggins said. "They're less likely to make some of the more common financial mistakes that maybe we made as young adults."
Building financial skills... is Building Better Minds.
Building Better Minds with Rob Cardwell airs Wednesday on CBS 6 News at 6 a.m.
