RENTON, Wash., June 03, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- First Financial Northwest, Inc. (“Company”) (NASDAQ:FFNW) today announced that its subsidiary financial institution, First Financial Northwest Bank (FFNWB) has renewed its partnership with the Renton High School (RHS) Football Program to provide financial literacy skills to students in the community by utilizing a highly original and successful teaching method that was developed through this partnership last year.
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FFNWB employees have volunteered to educate the roughly - 50 players on the RHS football team about key topics in personal finance, such as banking, savings, credit reports, identity theft, debt management, and loans. The series of six classes fills the students’ down time between the end of the school day and their home games, and the Bank treats the team to a pre-game meal from a local food truck after each hour-long session.
This unusual arrangement not only gives the students a place to go after school, which presents an immediate material benefit. It also provides them with sound financial literacy tools that will serve them for a lifetime.
The majority of the students in the RHS football program live in a geographical area of low-to-moderate-income neighborhoods. Approximately 65 percent of the high school’s 1,300 students qualify for free or reduced-cost school lunches.
Last year, head football coach, Tim Tramp, contacted FFNWB’s President and CEO, Joe Kiley, about providing some kind of support for the RHS football players; however, as they started discussing what the community bank could do for the team, they realized they had an opportunity to make a more lasting impact on the students’ lives. Coach Tramp espouses a philosophy that uses football to teach lifelong skills.
The Bank’s employees have responded enthusiastically again this year, filling up nearly every available volunteer slot for the sessions—ten slots per class—which will resume in the fall term.
During the first session in the series, which took place on Thursday, June 2, the volunteers and students tackled the basics of banking, giving the kids a rare opportunity to ask Bank employees directly about specific scenarios. Tramp was impressed at the number of questions that the players posed, observing, “There’s a big difference between getting financial advice from a parent or teacher and hearing it from an actual banker.”
The classes also come at a crucial moment for the students, who find themselves on the cusp of adulthood and financial independence.
Tramp notes that after graduation, his football players will head to technical college and universities, while a few will work immediately afterward. He adds, “Most will be on their own.”
Kiley stresses, “What is driving my passion to build this program was realizing too late that I hadn’t taught my own kids how to manage their debit cards and checkbooks before I sent them off to college.”
“Now, I want our Bank to share its success with the community by promoting financial literacy as a lasting way to support kids in our area,” he says.
First Financial Northwest Bank has led the community in its many efforts to bring financial literacy to the public. The Bank sponsors an innovative financial literacy software program called EverFi in the Renton and Tukwila, WA school districts and recently received the 2016 Innovation in Financial Education Award from EverFi and NASDAQ for its program. The Bank was one of 38 companies selected from across the U.S., some of which were Fortune 100 companies such as Comcast, Morgan Stanley, American Express, and Mass Mutual. In addition, the Bank has sent employees to provide financial education at various Renton middle and high schools and at Foster High School in Tukwila, and it has hosted students from nearby schools such as Talbot Hill Elementary as part of its involvement in the American Bankers Association’s national Teach Children to Save program.
The Bank has also partnered with nonprofits such as Habitat for Humanity, the YWCA and Junior Achievement on financial literacy, as well as with the City of Renton’s Senior Activity Center to run senior fraud prevention workshops.
FFNWB regularly sets up booths to explain banking basics at community events, including the Seattle-King County Financial Resource Day this summer.
First Financial Northwest Bank is a Washington chartered commercial bank headquartered in Renton, Washington, serving the Puget Sound Region through its full-service banking offices in Mill Creek and Edmonds, with another coming soon to The Landing in Renton. FFNWB’s parent company is First Financial Northwest, Inc. For additional information, please visit the Bank’s website at www.ffnwb.com and click on the “Investor Relations” section.
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