WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Can a little Broadway flair help creditunions spread financial literacy and strike a chord with youngerstudents? Credit unions that have participated in the Googolplex@School program respond with a resounding yes. A multi-platform,in-school educational program, Googolplex@ School is the result ofa partnership of the National Youth Involvement Board, CUNA and theMinneapolis-based in-school touring group National Theater forChildren. The middle school program boosts financial literacythrough an entertaining, live, in-school theatre production andclassroom materials. The live theatre performance presents four keyprinciples how to prioritize needs and wants, the differencebetween cash and credit, why everyone should spend less than theyearn, and the importance of starting a savings habit. Students arealso provided workbooks with pre- and post-show activities,vocabulary words, fun facts and a take-home section designed toinclude the entire family in the financial literacy experience.Workbooks and teacher guides include the credit union's logo. Thereis also an option to create a Kidz Credit Union Club and includes asoftware savings program, classroom posters and CUNA's online youthmagazine Googolplex. Franklin Mint Federal Credit Union recentlysponsored a theatre performance and the student response has beenbetter than expected. “The earlier children are educated aboutpersonal finance the better their chances are of becomingfinancially responsible adults,” said FMFCU Marketing and PublicRelations Coordinator Christy Trabosh. “I've sat in the back of theperformances and the kids are thrilled with this program because itis so interactive. The two performers who play different roles pullstudents onto the stage with them and the audience and participantslove it!” For Antigo, Wisconsin-based Co Vantage Credit Union, theprogram has also helped add a new dimension to its youth educationefforts. “Our credit union has always been active with youth andwe've had a great relationship with schools here, but we wanted totake it a step further,” said CoVantage CU Vice PresidentMarketing/Human Resources Sherry L. Aulik. Considering opening acredit union branch in a high school, Aulik's “informal” studyrevealed that while the high school branch would be good from a PRstandpoint and strengthen the credit union's ties with areaschools, the estimated cost of $20,000 a year per school limitedthe number of students who could be reached. “We also learned fromcredit unions that had these branches that by the time the kidsreached high school age they already have their opinions onspending/saving developed,” said Aulik. “We wanted to make adifference in kids earlier, and the two biggest factors in favor ofthe Googolplex program were that it targets kids at an age where wefelt we had a better chance of motivating them to save; and that wecould be involved with more schools due to the lower cost.” Aulikadds that since the program is turnkey, involvement can be as muchor as little as the credit union and school agree on. Schoolpersonnel can even operate the kids' credit union branch since itis stand alone software. So far the credit union has successfullylaunched the program in two schools – D.C. Everest Junior High andAntigo Middle School. The renamed Kidz Bulldog Credit Unionoperates in the Antigo Middle School sixth grade math class and ofthe 120 students in the class 81 have opened accounts through theKidz Credit Union. Opened in October 2005 the Kidz Bulldog CreditUnion currently has assets totaling $725. In addition, 30 (15 eachsemester) sixth grade students are involved with running the creditunion under the supervision of a CoVantage staffer. Aulik saysstudent workers are not paid, but get the experience of working onthe computer, counting cash, balancing, member service, andcompleting the forms needed by the credit union. “What is sowonderful is that these sixth graders have already established apattern of consistently saving even if it is only 50 cents at atime,” said Aulik. “For us this program is not a source of depositsbut rather a way to really make a difference in the financial livesof these kids and it is working.” Plans are underway to add theprogram to two more schools by this fall says [email protected]