It's back to school season, and Virginia's credit unions didn'twaste any time reaching out to their next members – students.

Virginia-based credit unions reached 21,174 students during thenew 2012-2013 school year with lessons on personal finance basics,according to the Credit Unions Care Foundation of Virginia'sFinancial Education Committee.

Launched in 2009 by the Virginia Credit Union League, the CUCF helps individualsimprove their lives through education and supports other charitablegroups and public service causes.

Educating young people about budgeting, the importance of savingfor the future, and the wise use of credit has been a priority ofVirginia's CUs for decades, the league said.

Virginia's credit unions are among the nation's leaders infinancial education and have reached 261,675 students with lessonson basic budgeting and money management since 1999, the CUCFsaid.

“Few decisions affect us more directly than the ones we makeabout our money,” said UVA Community Credit Union's RebeccaCardwell, CUCF's chair. “And as we've learned the past few years,financial illiteracy not only takes a terrible toll on theindividual, it can also have a deep and lasting impact on ourcommunities and society as a whole.”

The efforts of the commonwealth's credit unions were recognizedrecently by the NationalYouth Involvement Board, capturing the sixth-place rankingnationally in number of students reached (21,174) and seventh-placenationally in the number of classroom presentations conducted(499), the league and the foundation said.

The NYIB collects financial education data each school year fromthe nation's credit unions, asking credit union employees andvolunteers to report the number of personal finance presentationsmade to students, the specific topics covered, and the number ofstudents reached during each presentation.

Nationally, credit unions reached 400,000 students in 12,243classroom presentations during the 2012-2013 school year, accordingto the NYIB, figures which include the Virginia numbers.