“What we wanted to do is create an army of financially stable, financially literate young people,” said the camp’s cofounder. Milan Smalls (left), 16, and Nile Smalls (right), 9, with Zeke, their shih-poo at home. Both kids attend the virtual Buy the Hood summer camp, which teaches children as young as 5 the fundamentals of how money, investing, and budgeting work.Read more It’s not unusual for a child to run up to a teacher in public, excited. It is a little more unusual for the child to then show off a stock portfolio.
But it’s happened to Corey Camp and Jimmy Williams, 45-year-old friends from their days at Central High School in Philadelphia. They run a free financial literacy summer camp for children as young as 5.
Their business, Buy the Hood LLC, began around 2015 as a way to teach adults about finances, investing, and the power of ownership. Many adults didn’t know the basics of such concepts as credit and property ownership, topics rarely taught in school. Camp, a special-education teacher at Mastery Charter School’s Pickett Campus in Germantown, and Williams, a Philadelphia real estate agent and investor, realized children stood to benefit the most from learning and applying these lessons early.
“Imagine if the concepts were put in front of us at 5 years old, and you could grow with them,” Williams said.
So Williams and Camp started the Buy the Hood Ownership Camp seven years ago. Through games and relatable examples, children learn about budgeting, investing, taxes, and cryptocurrency, and how banks work. They learn how to grow their money over time and about the Rule of 72, calculating how many years their money would take to double at a certain interest rate.
“What we wanted to do is create an army of financially stable, financially literate young people,” Camp said.
The camp used to be held at a Germantown day care center, but it went virtual during the pandemic, allowing children from across the country to attend. About 60 children, including repeat campers, are attending this year’s camp, which began June 25 and runs for six consecutive Saturday mornings. Williams and Camp also plan to help start financial literacy camps in other cities. You should be an investor : “You can’t just put your money in a bank and expect it to work for you,” Mr. Jimmy said.
Think like a bank . Make money off money you borrow.
Build good money habits now. “Everything you do is a deposit for tomorrow ,” Mr. Corey said.
They have been recruiting campers through their networks, and the vast majority of the children who attend are Black. Nationwide, the typical white family has eight times the wealth of the typical Black family . Most families build wealth by owning property. But the home ownership rate among Black households (43%) has dropped in the last decade and is well behind the home ownership rate among white households (72%).
“Right now everyone is talking about wealth-building and generational wealth,” said Nicole Purvy, an entrepreneur and founder of the nonprofit Philly Real Estate Week, Inc., which teaches adults about real estate investing and home ownership. “But what good is it if we don’t teach the next generation how to receive it?”
» READ MORE: It’s no easier for Black Philadelphians to become homeowners now than it was 30 years ago
This year, she partnered with Williams and Camp to create the new website and organize a fall gala to raise awareness and funds for the camp. Thanks to the partnership, campers will get a modest stipend to invest.
Rochelle Wilson-Ellis’ 16-year-old son, Kamren Ellis, and 10-year-old daughter, Keziah Ellis, have attended the camp from Detroit since it went virtual. Wilson-Ellis is an account analyst for a hospital group who owns several businesses and is enrolled in Buy the Hood University for adults.
“The camp is so amazing because they’re teaching them on their level,” she said. “When they would get out of class, they’d be like, ‘Ma, I learned this.’”
Although Camp and Williams try to make financial concepts digestible for children, they tell campers they shouldn’t worry about understanding everything they hear. Some concepts will make sense when they’re older.
The camp founders talk about brands the children like. Disney World is real estate, students learn. Someone owns their favorite sneaker brands, video games, movies, and restaurants. A lot of children don’t realize they can own things, Williams said.
“They know they’ve always had a landlord. Well, you can also be the landlord,” Williams said. “They may put themselves in […]
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