Author

Vanessa Baioni

Today we’re featuring an excerpt from Caroline, an elementary student from Arkansas who recently earned her Vault – Financial Literacy for Elementary Students certification. Congratulations to Caroline for being one of our scholarship recipients!

Student: Caroline

Teacher: Mrs. Cain

School: J. B. Hunt Elementary School

State: Arkansas

Sponsor: Arkansas 529 Gift Plan

“Have you ever thought about what you want to be when you grow up? Having goals and dreams for the future are important so that you can achieve them. Mahatma Gandhi once said, ‘Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.’

If I don’t get the best grades, I will try harder and harder each passing day. I will not give up. This EVERFI scholarship can help me get there. In my future I see myself as a baker. I will graduate from Oxford with my bachelor’s degree. After that I will continue in school onto culinary school. Finally, I will graduate and open a bakery in my hometown. With the EVERFI scholarship, I will have some extra money for Oxford. If I went to Oxford that would benefit me. I would like to major in business and learn how to run a bakery. It is my dream that can come true in my lifetime.

I will always try my hardest and keep going, enduring troubles that may come up at a random time. School, career, and living life to its fullest is what I would like to do after high school. School is definitely a key ingredient in the recipe that is life. Another would be my career. As I have mentioned, I want to own a bakery. My bakery will have warm and gooey cookies, cakes and cupcakes of every design, rainbow lollipops, and our special will be unbelievably good petit fours. My life is planned out for me by myself. It will be a wonderful life.

What I learned in the EVERFI course was that a job is different than a career, and I would like my bakery to be my career. I also learned that salary is different than wage. I will pay my workers in wage, but if they are long-term employees they will get paid in salary.

As a student wanting to attend Oxford for college, I believe that this EVERFI course has really affected me and has made me feel better about spending and saving my money for college. I know that even if I don’t achieve this goal of mine, I will go to college because I saved up and kept my grades doing well in school.

This EVERFI program has really helped me learn that even as a 5th grader, I can start saving up for my future and college. I really hope that I will get this scholarship to use for my college education and learn more about the great big world that is waiting for me. Thank you EVERFI, for helping me learn more about money.

‘Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts. That is the secret to success.’ – Swami Sivananda.”