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October 16, 2023

“The time and care that they give to our community is what makes them special.” Learn about HawaiiUSA's commitment to financial education at Waipahu High School.

Waipahu High School and HawaiiUSA began a financial education partnership decades ago when they formed a Student-Operated Credit Union (SOCU) on campus. “We are actually celebrating our 29th year of that partnership where together with HawaiiUSA, our students get to actually learn how to develop and operate their own credit union branch on our campus,” says Elizabeth Higashi, Assistant Principal at Waipahu High School.

“They run curriculum to train our students on what does it mean to be a bank manager or be a bank teller? And then what does it also mean to be financially well. So our students go through training on how to operate a branch, how to open a branch, in addition to how do they run workshops for financial literacy for our school community.”

“It's not just about opening an account, but what does it mean to have goals and then actually fulfill those goals financially? They never really understood before what it meant to save or what it meant to understand the difference between I want something or I really need something financially.”

“They [HawaiiUSA] are constantly in our school working with our students, working with our families, working with our parents and our staff. To me, Life matters is being part of a community.”

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