The need for greater financial literacy has become apparent, particularly in these days where outsourcing, layoffs and bankruptcies have become more commonplace.
Perhaps that’s why hundreds gathered at a local bank branch in Northwest last Wednesday to hear about a unique partnership between a financial institution and one of the nation’s most successful nonprofit organizations. The program, HOPE Inside, offers a host of financial services that according to Operation HOPE founder, chairman and CEO, John Hope Bryant, seek to make individuals feel greater self-esteem.
“What we’re doing is not so much about providing education and assistance as it relates to financial management as it is about finishing the work that was started by President Abraham Lincoln when he set up the Freedman’s Bank in 1865,” said Bryant, who started his nonprofit company, Operation HOPE, in 1992 in Los Angeles shortly after riots broke out in the city. “Lincoln knew that freed slaves needed help learning about capitalism and tapping into the system of free enterprise after centuries of dependent bondage. That’s what this program aims to accomplish,” said Bryant, 48.