Building a Solid Foundation on Financial Literacy
On Tuesday, February 10, 2015, State Farm presented Habitat for Humanity of Broward with a 2015 State Farm Good Neighbor Citizenship grant for $5,000 to provide financial literacy education and counseling to low income families—Habitat partner families—who are preparing to become first-time homeowners.
Recognizing that first-time homebuyers need more than an affordable mortgage to succeed, partner families must complete a nine-month homebuyer education and counseling curriculum—HomeWORKS—and invest sweat equity in home construction. Partner families’ children ages 10-16 participate in a similar education program, Blueprints4Life, which is designed to teach basic life skills, including financial literacy, and the attitudes needed for success.
Jennifer Zack, a 34-year-old single mother of two daughters and receptionist at a busy medical practice, became a proud homeowner shortly before the Christmas of 2014. Her days of moving from apartment to apartment and being at the mercy of irresponsible landlords are finally behind her. Thanks to the Habitat Broward program, she not only cut her housing expenses in half, but she gained the knowledge and tools to succeed in homeownership.
“Habitat made the process of becoming a homeowner pretty easy. I knew nothing about owning a home until I went through the education and counseling. By applying what I learned in the program, I increased my credit score by approximately 50 points—which will help me to qualify for lower interest rates on cars and other credit in the future,” says Jennifer.
This year’s State Farm grant will help Habitat Broward purchase financial literacy materials, including the expansion of on-line courses designed to increase Habitat Broward’s partner families’ knowledge of homeownership and to teach their children the fundamentals of money management, credit and other financial literacy topics. Partner families will also receive educational handbooks, CD’s and an interactive board game to make the process of learning about financial literacy more fun for everyone.
About Habitat Broward
Habitat for Humanity of Broward, located at 3564 Ocean Blvd. in Fort Lauderdale, was founded in 1983 as the affiliate of Habitat for Humanity International. To date, Habitat Broward has empowered 368 families to move from substandard rental housing to owning a decent, affordable home of their own. To learn more about Habitat Broward and how you can make a difference in the lives of deserving families, please visit http://www.habitatbroward.org.
About State Farm®:
State Farm and its affiliates are the largest provider of car insurance in the U.S. and is a leading insurer in Canada. In addition to providing auto insurance quotes, their 18,000 agents and more than 65,000 employees serve 81 million policies and accounts – more than 79 million auto, home, life and health policies in the United States and Canada, and nearly 2 million bank accounts. Commercial auto insurance, along with coverage for renters, business owners, boats and motorcycles, is also available. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company is the parent of the State Farm family of companies. State Farm is ranked No. 44 on the Fortune 500 list of largest companies. For more information, please visit http://www.statefarm.com or in Canada http://www.statefarm.ca.
