Seahawks’ Russell Wilson and performer Ciara shock West Seattle college students with financial savings accounts

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson and performance artist Ciara Wilson are making a surprise online visit Tuesday with students from Denny Way International Middle School. The energetic couple gave a memorable lesson in investing and saving that students can now take to the bank. (Amanda Snyder / The Seattle Times)

Nearly 900 students at Denny International Middle School received in-depth financial advice Tuesday from a Seattle energy couple, as well as a memorable lesson on investing and saving that can now be brought to the bank.

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson and performance artist Ciara made a surprise virtual visit and donated more than $ 35,000 to give every West Seattle public school student a savings account with $ 40 starting capital. The agreement is part of a Financial Literacy Month partnership with the NFL Players Association, the couple’s Why Not You Foundation, and New York-based financial technology company Goalsetter.

Tanya Van Court, CEO of Goalsetter, started with a lesson called “Building Wealth – A Blueprint for Financial Freedom Inspired by Hip Hop,” which includes a brief case study of how rapper Jay-Z was not just through his music, but how He also became a billionaire through his music and invest it wisely. During class, the Wilsons came to drop gems of financial trivia as well as the savings account announcement.

Some students watched the program from their classrooms, others from home.

“Financial literacy and wealth building are so important,” said Wilson. “Ciara and I really wanted to talk to all of you because we didn’t get much and had big visions, big goals, big dreams.” Wilson said the couple learned about personal finance over the course of their successes.

He encouraged students to contribute to the causes they believe in, but first to “make sure you know what you are doing” by doing research. He surveyed students by dropping another household name – Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos – and spoke about the risks Bezos took to attract investors and hold onto his 53 million shares in the company, which are now more than US $ 3,000 each -Dollars are worth.

Ciara encouraged middle school students to invest time in themselves, their craft, and their communities, and learn about the things they might want to invest in financially.

“All of these things can pay off tremendously if you invest in them properly. … Investing is very powerful and it is also an opportunity for you to build a legacy for your family, ”Ciara said.

When eighth-grade student leader Elizabeth Palma Alvarado asked the couple about their stock recommendations for young investors, Wilson encouraged students to learn more about technology in order to prepare to invest in the world’s next big innovations.

“It’s about finding the next up and coming thing. I wish I had invested in Facebook when I was young, ”said the 32-year-old.

Wilson still has time, as do the Denny Middle students. To encourage saving, their new savings accounts have one limitation: they cannot be touched until the students are 18 years old.

Giving away cash or gift cards is not an incentive for children to save or invest, explained Van Court, CEO of Goalsetter.

“Gift cards teach them about consumption. Spend on things you don’t really need, ”she said.

Instead, the Goalsetter program offers tools for family skills of up to five years through its app. Finally, students are given a teen and tweens debit card that has game-based financial literacy quizzes attached to it via the Goalsetter app. Student funds are frozen on Sunday morning unless students take their financial literacy quiz for the week. The unique accounts also allow friends and family members to contribute to a teenager’s account.

Over the past year, Van Court, who has experience managing youth education programs for brands like Discovery, Nick Jr., and Noggin, as well as launching ESPN3, has used that knowledge and relationships with NBA and NFL personalities to create a movement in the Youth and youth education to guide their families about building generational wealth.

“After these kids see or hear Russell Wilson in their classroom, I want them to see that they don’t have to aspire to be in the NFL to be as cool and financially successful as him,” said Van Court. “But any kid in Seattle can be in finance.”

Wilson’s teammate, linebacker KJ Wright, also recently gifted semen accounts for classes at Aki Kurose Middle School. Goalsetter partnerships include 40 individuals and organizations. The largest contribution to date was Nike, which sponsored savings accounts for 10,000 children valued at $ 1 million.

“It should really be a crime for kids to leave high school and describe the periodic table but not the stock market,” said Van Court. “We have a capitalist society that depends on understanding the infrastructure of capitalism to build wealth, but all we teach them is to go out and get a job. ”

She said she was shocked to learn about the growing national racial wealth gaps in the United States. The data puts blacks and Latinos on the path of running out of wealth for the next 30 and 50 years, respectively.

As a black woman and parent, Van Court said she didn’t want this to happen on her watch.

She would like to achieve her company’s goal of adding one million children and families to the Goalsetter program, but she also wants every state to have a mandatory K-12 financial education curriculum “just like we mandate English.”

“I also want to say that I want us to mandate this financial education in a way that is culturally relevant and applicable to all children,” said Van Court.

Denny director Jeff Clark said Tuesday the program was a “super exciting upgrade” to the school’s existing financial literacy education program and math courses that incorporate financial literacy. The announcement and instructions for attending the goalie will be translated into the various languages ​​spoken by the families that the school serves. 29% of Denny Middle’s students are Latinos, 23% White, 22% Black, 13% Asians, 2% Pacific Islanders, 1% Indians, and the remaining 10% as more than one race.

Clark said that eighth graders are beginning to bring their financial literacy skills to a “real world project” where students identify two career paths, one requiring a college degree and the other analyzing earnings to borrow debt for things that they have a passion and that understand their financial development. “