What happens when you couple the hip-hop musical talent and creativity of today’s youth with one of the most important and often intimidating topics among teens today?
Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) and Charles Schwab Foundation did just that when they teamed up to create the Money Matters Music Mogul contest to strike a chord with teens about the power of financial education and knowledge.
The contest leveraged hip-hop to build awareness of Money Matters: Make It Count, a personal finance education program available through the 1,700 Boys & Girls Clubs that serve teens. (To date, approximately 375,000 teens have successfully completed the program since it was launched in 2004.)
For the contest, Boys & Girls Club teens across the country were challenged to write original song lyrics about tackling personal money issues for the opportunity of a lifetime: to have award-winning hip-hop producer Kevin “Khao” Cates professionally produce the winning song as a music video.
The five finalists for the grand prize would each additionally receive a $500 college scholarship grant from Charles Schwab Foundation.
More than 142,000 votes were cast (more than votes cast in the Iowa Caucuses) for the top five finalists’ songs. Syretha Shirley of Las Vegas, Nevada won the top prize for her “Time is Money” song.
Here is Syretha’s video: http://www.bgca.org/newsevents/TheScoop/Pages/M4_MoneyMatters_2012.aspx.
