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Bangor

Teaching children to save

Employees from Merrill Bank were in local classrooms April 10 to help children learn their financial ABCs and become “smart savers.” The initiative was part of the seventh Teach Children to Save Day, a program developed by the American Bankers Association Education Foundation. Merrill Bank adopted the program as part of a statewide effort by the Maine Bankers Association to provide hands-on financial education to schoolchildren.

“We are very pleased to be part of a program that offers money-management ‘life skills’ to youth,” said Edwin N. Clift, president and chief executive officer of Merrill Bank. “While today’s kids are trained on computers and can use a CD-ROM to do their homework, they may not know the basics of saving and money management.”

The Teach Children to Save presentations included games and hands-on activities covering topics such as prioritizing wants and needs, and budgeting and saving for the future.

Angela Butler, vice president-commercial lender, visited Karen Baldacci’s kindergarten class, and Theresa Brooks, loan officer, worked with Maureen Ireland’s first-grade class at Fruit Street School in Bangor.

At McGraw School in Hampden, Alison Bailey, loan officer, visited Amy Hanson’s kindergarten class.

Cindi Leighton, training officer, made a presentation to Laurie Kimball’s and Andrea Harris’ first-graders at the Veazie Community School.

Lynne Spooner, senior vice president-retail banking, worked with fourth-grade teachers Alyce Masters, Martha Latno and Maurice Racklif at Lewis Libby School in Milford.

Classroom materials used on Teach Children to Save Day supported curriculum standards established by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the National Council of Teachers of English and the Family and Consumer Sciences.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin