8 students at 4 Long Beach high schools win scholarship dollars, learn financial savvy

Long Beach students and schools benefited from Nuvision Credit Union's effort to help educate young people about consumer credit and other financial literacy basics through its second Think.Tank.Challenge Essay Scholarship Contest. Each of the total of 11 participating schools received $500 from Nuvision for taking part in the program.

Long Beach winners included Emily Pelayo and Sydney Lara of Long Beach Polytechnic High School, who each won $1,000. Honorable mention prizes of $250 each went to Vanessa Martinez, April Ray, Swasti Catalan, also of Long Beach Poly, Lizette Hernandez of Cabrillo High School, Lakewood High School's Crystal Gutierrez, and Chelsea Huynh of Ernest McBride High School.

Sydney Lara wrote in her essay: "Most high school kids spend their time worrying about getting the best clothes, going to the best parties, and using the best school supplies. Most kids however, don’t realize how much those things cost. What NuVision’s workshop has taught me is that the small choices I make now can impact my future finances in a big way. They can not only help me save for college but for long term goals as well."

Nuvision Credit Union offered Southern California high schools in the vicinity of each of its 12 California branch locations free evening workshops for students and parents. A variety of professionals gave real-world advice on money management and achieving personal goals at the workshops. Guest speakers included two Northrop Grumman engineers, an executive from Boeing, and retired NFL player and Olympic gold medalist Ron Brown. Nuvision and its financial advisors explained that a graduating millennial will need roughly $2.5 million in order to retire comfortably. To do that, students learned strategies to help them avoid common financial pitfalls, develop a healthy attitude toward money, and understand credit, savings, and banking basics.

Attila Morgan, Nuvision’s Manager of Community Engagement, said the Think.Tank.Challenge Essay Scholarship Contest attracted 93 essay contest entrants and 11 participating schools, up from 39 submissions and four schools in 2016, its inaugural year.

“Our goal is to encourage financial literacy and generate a more savvy, responsible generation of financial services consumers,” noted Morgan. “It was clear from what they wrote that these students were soaking up the information at our workshops. We were impressed with the quality of the essays submitted.”

Read the winning essays at http://thinktankessay.com

The 21 Think.Tank.Challenge 2017 winners and their prizes are:

• First place, $5,000 prize: Chantel Hung, Schurr High School, Montebello Unified School District

• Runners-up each receiving $1,000 prizes:

Tuan Do, Mater Dei High School, Santa Ana

John Garcia and Destinee Hung, Schurr High School

Emily Pelayo and Sydney Lara, Long Beach Polytechnic High School, Long Beach Unified School District

Dayanah Towner and Daisy Boeckmann, Carson High School, Los Angeles Unified School District

Jason Lee and Jennifer La, Oxford Academy, Anaheim Union High School District

Cloudia Msmeh, Savanna High School, Anaheim Union High School District

• Honorable mention winners each receiving $250:

Mellisa Mulia, Schurr High School

Lizette Hernandez, Cabrillo High School, Long Beach Unified School District

Vanessa Martinez, April Ray, Swasti Catalan, Long Beach Polytechnic High School

Natalie Medina, Savanna High School

Kalis Collman, City Honors College Preparatory Academy, Inglewood Unified School District

Crystal Gutierrez, Lakewood High School, Long Beach Unified School District

Chelsea Huynh, Ernest McBride High School, Long Beach Unified School District

Kylie Gerger, Mater Dei High School

Nuvision Credit Union is a full-service financial institution with 13 branches located in Los Angeles and Orange Counties and Arizona and assets of more than $1.5 billion. Headquartered in Huntington Beach, Calif., NuVision was founded in 1935 to serve employees of Douglas Aircraft Company. It continues to serve aerospace employees from Boeing, employees of Sempra Energy/The Gas Company, employees of Tesoro, and Southern California communities with a total of more than 85,000 members primarily in Los Angeles and Orange Counties. www.NuVisionFederal.org.