Raise your hand if you wish school had covered basic skills like what a credit score means, how to create a budget, or what to do if you can’t pay this month’s electrical bill. Both hands raised over here!

We’re making sure that at least 3,000 economically disadvantaged individuals on community college campuses don’t have to learn these skills the hard way. Starting this September, United Way is deploying 12 AmeriCorps members on four different community college campuses as part of the Ready & Resilient program. These members will help students get by, get ahead and stay ahead.

The Ready & Resilient program will provide one-on-one coaching and larger workshops. Financial coaching preps students to create short-term and long-term goals. But even beyond that, the AmeriCorps members will work with each individual to create a plan to achieve the goals, check in with them regularly to track progress, and continuously cater to the changing needs of each student. Financial goals are different for everyone. Some students will want to save for books, rent or groceries. Others will want to improve their credit score or save for a car.

The program will also provide financial workshops on a range of topics from how to get started with a savings account to more savvy subjects like how to create (and stick to) a budget.

One student had this to say after her first one-on-one Ready & Resilient coaching session and finding out that the amount of debt she had was much less than what she had imagined it was going to be: “It was one of the happiest moments of my life! I’m excited and really looking forward to my next appointment.”

Do you love this work? We can’t do it without you. Consider making a gift to support and sustain it.

Stay tuned for updates after the Ready & Resilient team is deployed this fall!