Merchants Bank Invests in Financial Education for VT Teachers

Champlain College's Summer Financial Literacy Institute Aimed at Helping Train Educators

LEARN: Workshops on best practices in teaching financial skills.

INVEST: Get free curriculum materials and access additional resources for your students.

ENGAGE: Get techniques to create a vital and fun-learning atmosphere.

CREATE: Lesson plans to teach financial sophistication.

Institute Dates : June 25-29, 2012

$400 Toolkit included in Summer Institute Registration Fee.

Scholarship and room & board is available for qualified applicants.

Register: Visit the Details and Registration page

We look forward to having you on campus this Summer!

Merchants Bank and Merchants Bank Foundation are joining with Champlain College to increase financial literacy in Vermont classrooms. Merchants has extended a $125,000 grant to fund a new training program to prepare secondary school educators to teach students how to budget, handle credit cards, plan for the future, and understand retirement before they graduate from high school.

Thomas S. Leavitt, executive vice president for Merchants Bank in Burlington, is pleased to announce funding that will enable more than 100 secondary and high school teachers to attend a five-day summer program to expand their financial knowledge and bring new skills to the classroom. The funding will cover three summer institutes to be held at Champlain College in 2011, 2012, and 2013.

The Vermont Teachers Financial Literacy Summer Institute, sponsored by Merchants Bank, will focus on four main classroom elements during a 45-hour program offering three graduate degree credits:

• Develop teacher knowledge of financial literacy topics through interactive and collaborative training, exercises and group projects.
• Provide information on free curriculum available for high school and middle school students on personal finance and how to access the materials.
• Discuss classroom strategies to create a vital, engaging and fun learning atmosphere.
• Create a detailed lesson plan for bringing their training into the classroom in the following year.

Another goal of the program is to recruit teachers to participate from more than 75 percent of Vermont's Supervisory Unions over the three years of the program. Academic scholarships to help cover the $1,200 cost of the institute will be available. Room and board will be included for those teachers that reside in an area of the state where commuting to Burlington each day is not possible. Participating teachers will receive a $400 "toolkit" of personal finance resources to use in the classroom.

"Teachers who complete the training will have the confidence, skills and curriculum tools to successfully train their students in handling their money wisely," said Center for Financial Literacy Director John Pelletier.

"Merchants Bank is pleased to be in a position to help educate Vermonters in a challenging economic climate," added Leavitt. "We have a 161-year tradition of serving Vermont's communities and this is truly a meaningful way of providing important enlightenment to our children about planning for their financial future. This builds upon a strong commitment we have had as one of the Northeast's most active banking companies in bringing financial literacy content to our served markets via the FDIC Money Smart Program."