By Justin Tang
July 4, 2011

Conference of Mayors President Burnsville (MN) Mayor Elizabeth B. Kautz updated mayors on the progress of the DollarWise program at the 79th annual meeting. The DollarWise program is the mayors’ campaign for financial literacy, which offers financial education to underserved city residents.

Kautz highlighted some of the achievements of the 2011 Innovation and Summer Youth Campaign grant winners. Hartford (CT) Mayor Pedro Segarra will launch a pilot program this fall that offers weekly financial education classes for families at Burr Elementary School. The program intends to establish and foster better environments for student learning and success.

Kautz also played a video documenting Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory’s sixth annual summer job fair. Mallory is using the city’s innovation grant to incorporate financial education into his job fair, which attracted more than 4,000 young adults to the event. As a result of the DollarWise funding, young adults will attend financial education classes throughout the summer jobs program.

Kautz reemphasized DollarWise’s goal to incorporate financial education into every summer youth program in America by 2015. “These summer opportunities are critical for our kids’ future success,” she announced.

The DollarWise Campaign also announced a 2011 Facebook Video Competition. Kautz said, “DollarWise invites any young adult who has a summer job to post a testimonial video on our Facebook page (facebook.com/bedollarwise) and talk about the importance of having a summer job.” The five selected winners with the best videos will receive an iPad 2!

Earlier in the meeting, Kautz presented Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake with a $5,000 2011 Summer Youth Campaign grant for her work in adding financial literacy to Baltimore’s summer youth jobs program.