Center for Personal Financial Education awarded $90,000 grant, moves to new homeThe Center for Personal Financial Education has a new name, a new home, and a new grant.
Now called the URI Center for Personal Financial Education, the Center has moved from its first home in Warwick to the Transition Center on URI’s Kingston Campus. The $90,000 grant from the CDNE Foundation will help bolster its programs in workplace financial education, online credit education for college students, and outreach at schools.
According to Provost M. Beverly Swan, moving the Center to URI supports one of the University’s main focus areas—Children, Families and Communities. “Since money matters are often at the core of a family’s stability, we want to be at the forefront of providing information to Rhode Islanders that strengthen families and in turn the entire state.”
At an open house in April, Len O’Connor, director of the CDNE Foundation, presented University officials with a check for $90,000 to support the Center’s efforts. The CDNE Foundation’s mission is to support credit education in New England.
The Center’s mission is to advance the adoption of sound personal financial practices by developing and delivering personal financial education programs and conducting related research. The goal of the Center is for all Rhode Islanders to attain financial well being as a result of informed decision-making about spending, saving, and investing their money.
Joan Gray Anderson, professor of Human Development and Family Studies, serves as the Center’s director of research, and Claudia M. Kerbel is the Center’s director of outreach.
“There is a huge need for this kind of information, particularly since the economy has been in a downturn,” Kerbel said. “There are so many people who walk the thin line between financial control and financial crisis, and when that layoff notice comes or the overtime drops, they fall into deep financial trouble.”
Established in 1996, the Center is a joint venture between URI and the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Southern New England.
“Every day, we help people in financial trouble,” said Steve Bucci, a URI alumnus who is the president of Consumer Credit Counseling Service and a director of the CDNE Foundation. “So it’s important that the URI Center has become a permanent part of the landscape. The Center is going to continue to help Rhode Islanders make better financial decisions.”
The Center’s main product is a program called Getting Fiscally Fit, a series of nine modules designed for financial educators. The units cover effective strategies for personal money management, credit, insurance, buying your first home, buying and leasing a car, investing, saving for college, retirement planning and financial matters during later life.
By Dave Lavallee
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