Recently my Operation HOPE, Washington, DC and Operation HOPE, Maryland teams came together and had a very successful Banking on our Future volunteer event at Francis Scott Key Middle School in Silver Spring, MD. There were over 100 HOPE Corps volunteers present and involved, and included employees from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Women in Housing and Finance, Capital One, Fannie Mae, M&T Bank, Bank of India, BB&T Bank, Sandy Spring Bank, Bank of America, First Mariner Bank, FDIC, City First Bank, ETrade Bank, Wells Fargo, Bank of Georgetown, and FINRA.
A special thank you to my friend and financial dignity supporter, Maryland State Comptroller Peter Franchot, who teamed up with US Comptroller of the Currency Barry Wides to teach a Banking on Our Future financial literacy class. Maryland Comptroller Franchot and US Deputy Comptroller Wides also spoke to the volunteers about Franchot's mission to get each county in Maryland to adopt a graduation requirement for a financial literacy class in the senior year. Severak counties have already signed on to support this financial dignity leadership initiative of Comptroller Franchot. Operation HOPE certainly supports him.
A special acknowledgement to Jackie Starr, who is our Operation HOPE market president for the Washington, D.C. and Maryland.
Operation HOPE, Washington, DC and Operation HOPE, Maryland are part of the larger mission of Operation HOPE, which is now a leading global provider of financial literacy to financial dignity empowerment services for the underserved, the working poor and the struggling middle class.
With 2 million clients served, 20,000 HOPE Corps volunteers, and more than $1.5 billion in private capital directed into America's low wealth and underserved communities, creating thousands of homeowners, small business owners and entrepreneurs over the past 20 years, Operation HOPE is making a difference. But we cannot achieve our mission alone. We cannot seek to advance the final work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., eradicating poverty and achieving a measure of economic justice for all, alone.
Operation HOPE operates the HOPE Financial Dignity Center Atlanta at Ebenezer Church, located on the campus of the King Center and as the anchor tenant of the Martin Luther King, Sr. Community Resource Complex. Martin Luther King, Sr, or "Daddy King" as he was called, co-pastored Ebenezer Church with his son Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the civil rights movement, and served on the board of a bank for 40-years; a little known fact. Daddy King was also focused on making free enterprise work for all, as his son was focused in the last years of his life on poverty eradication and economic justice.
The mission of Operation HOPE is civil rights to silver rights, or making free enterprise work for all.