Supporting Financial Literacy
Financial Wellness Partner Program
Our decades-long commitment to improving financial literacy continued, with 352 Financial Wellness classes delivered across our footprint in 2024. This includes Next Gen version of Financial Wellness classes designed for high school students to help them build a foundation of financial literacy. We offer our program at no charge through employers, community groups, and schools. The program is flexible, so class content and timing fit each audience’s needs, including in-person and Zoom delivery. We offer six topics ranging from budgeting to using credit to protecting your identity, all led in an interactive style by Lake City Bank employees. Participants leave class with actionable knowledge they can use right away.
Junior Achievement
Across our footprint, Lake City Bank employees devote hundreds of hours each year to teaching young people about financial literacy, business and entrepreneurship with Junior Achievement. In 2024, over 7,500 children participated in Junior Achievement classes led by Lake City Bank volunteers. Classes included Biz Town and Finance Park; JA Our Cities, Our Region, Our Nation, Ourselves, Our Families; Economics for Success; Personal Finance; and more.
In 2024 Lake City Bank employees volunteered with JA’s 3DE program; a learning experience designed to be authentically connected to the world beyond the classroom, first launched in Fort Wayne Community Schools in 2022. In this program, students are grouped together into cohorts, and work through case studies built around real-world, real-time business challenges from regional and national companies. As part of the program, students had the opportunity to work with Lake City Bank employees to develop a marketing plan for one of Lake City Bank’s new accounts designed for youth.
Lake City Bank also received The U.S. President’s Volunteer Service Award – Bronze Level for the second year in a row in 2024, for services provided during the 2022-2023 school year. This is a presidential recognition program created by the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation for individuals of all ages who contribute a significant amount of time to volunteer service. In 2006, Junior Achievement became an official certifying organization for this award because of its national reach and standing. This status allows JA to bestow this honor to corporations with a U.S. presence that provide volunteers to teach JA programs anywhere in the world. Lake City Bank was one of only 69 companies across the nation honored with this award.
Reality Store
Since 2010, local students have experienced the economics of real life through our Reality Stores—brought to students from third grade through high school by Lake City Bank volunteers. We assign students a personal situation—married or single with a job/career, such as a registered nurse with an annual income of $76,000. The students draw a card with the number of children they will have and they select living choices and the expenditures that go along with them at different stations staffed by bank volunteers. For example, they have to choose between renting or buying a home, and for how much; what kind of car they will drive and if they can afford one; and even what will happen if they’re struck by an unexpected event, like a house fire or other calamity. Students learn how much it costs to run a household very quickly. Based on the family profile they’re assigned, they can see immediately how education and/or different jobs affect income and lifestyle. Volunteers report seeing students’ “Aha” moments as they realize that choices made early on, like education and career/job choices, have a direct effect on how they can live. Schools appreciate Reality Stores too. The learning is experiential, and the Lake City Bank team provides everything needed for the turnkey event.
In 2024, we held Reality Stores at Harrison Elementary, Riley High School, Clay High School, Washington High School, The Excel Center, Lakeview Middle School, and Elkhart High School.
