Going Beyond: How Financial Confidence Changed Carol’s Future

As I start my freshman year of college, I’m guided by one belief: always go beyond. Beyond expectations. Beyond obstacles. Beyond what you think is possible.

My parents taught me to stay open-minded, and that curiosity inspired me to dream bigger for myself and my community. As a Business Administration and Sociology major, I want to help families like mine break cycles of poverty and build brighter futures.

That purpose began at my Boys & Girls Club. It gave me a safe place to grow, believe in myself, and explore possibilities I hadn’t imagined before.

My Club’s consistent support helped shape who I am. Now, I want to create those same opportunities for others.

Beyond A Job: The Internship that Changed Everything

I grew up in a multicultural, working-class community in San Francisco. Because safety was a concern in my neighborhood, my parents did not want me home alone after school. While they worked hard to create opportunities for our family — like many immigrants without a college education — they wanted doors open to me that they never had.

Fortunately, the last stop on my middle school bus route was at Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco. That’s where I spent most afternoons, often following my mentor, Erin, around, and absorbing all the opportunities provided by the Club.

One of those was a paid internship at the Club during high school. I applied because I wanted to help relieve some of the financial pressure my parents faced. During orientation, I was introduced to the Money Matters: Make it Count program, offered by Charles Schwab Foundation. This program forever changed my thinking on personal finance, giving me skills and confidence to build the future I wanted.

Beyond Spending: Treating Money as a Tool for Growth

The Money Matters program at my Boys & Girls Club changed the way I think about money.

For the first time, instead of seeing money as a source of stress, I recognized it as a tool for reaching my goals before and after graduation.

• I spent my Club internship paycheck on AP exams and textbooks instead of short-term wants.
• I earned college credit through AP courses, putting me on a path to graduate sooner.
• I participated in a goal-setting exercise that helped me create a higher education plan to pursue my career ambitions.
• I identified 10 scholarships during a Money Matters workshop and applied to each one to help fund my college education.

After all my hard work, I was accepted to UC Berkeley on a full-ride scholarship.

As the first in my family to attend college, this achievement means so much to me. It proves how limitless possibilities can be when I use financial literacy with intention.

It’s also what inspired my goal of returning to my community after college to support local nonprofits as a consultant. I’ve always wanted to help nonprofit organizations expand their reach and make sure low-income and first-generation families know about the critical resources available to them. Through opportunities like Money Matters at my Boys & Girls Club, I’m one step closer to this dream.

Beyond the Textbook: Teaching Every Teen About Money

Growing up, money was tight, so I never received an allowance. Because of that, most of what I knew about finances came from textbooks or Monopoly, which only gave me a limited view of how money really works. It wasn’t until I started earning my own paycheck that I began to understand the value of saving, budgeting and making thoughtful spending decisions.

Through my Club internship, I learned how to prioritize needs over wants and plan for the future. That experience showed me that financial literacy isn’t something you fully learn in a classroom. It comes from having the chance to earn and manage your own money. I believe every young person deserves that opportunity.

That’s why I want to work with community partners and corporations to expand paid internship opportunities for youth. By connecting more young people with hands-on financial literacy experiences, we can help more teens see new possibilities for their future.

Because when young people learn how to manage money, they gain more than an essential life skill. They gain a golden ticket for creating a future that does more for themselves, their family and those coming up behind them.

For more than 20 years, Charles Schwab Foundation has supported the Money Matters: Make it Count program to equip youth and teens with financial literacy skills and teach habits of financial responsibility and independence.