By William Haimilton, PBN Staff Writer                 Lefkowitz Garfinkel Champi & DeRienzo PC tax manager talks about a new RI Society of CPAs CASH program: Colleges And Schools Headed for Success.
How did the CASH program come to fruition?  The concept of pairing college students with professionals first came to mind while speaking to a group of high school teachers at a Jump$tart Rhode Island Coalition event. I was invited to speak about the possible involvement of volunteer CPAs for their personal finance courses during the current academic year. In talking with other organizations, there was a definitive need that was not currently being filled. Everyone we talked to responded favorably to the concept of CPAs mentoring college students and college students providing an important message to teens.  I brought the idea to the RISCPA Cooperation with Educational Institutions Committee. The members, who are primarily accounting faculty at local colleges, were also very enthusiastic, so we decided to move forward with the idea.  At that point, Elizabeth Cannata (Chair of the RISCPA Educational Coop Committee) and I drafted an outline of the program and presented it to our RISCPA committees at a joint meeting in December. Following that meeting, we asked students and professional volunteers to come forward to participate in the program. The response has been terrific; we have about 14 students and a similar number of CPAs working together to fine tune the program.
 
What are you hoping to accomplish through the program?  Ultimately, we hope to get more people to use a personal financial plan.  Implementation of the key concepts can be the path to a secure future. We believe that CASH can help accomplish that for each of the volunteers in addition to the high school students that they will ultimately address. It also provides a great opportunity to promote the accounting profession and enables students and professionals to form relationships. In today's economy, students need to begin their professional network before they graduate. Additionally, for employers, identifying viable job candidates from their interaction with these college students could provide tremendous savings in recruiting and on-boarding costs.
 
How will you get high schools to "buy into" the program?  There are certainly no guarantees, but the initial feedback seems positive. At least five of the Jump$tart schools have expressed interest. Also, some of our volunteers have existing relationships with high school teachers; I am hoping that these contacts generate workshop opportunities for the CASH program.
 
Have you had any success with the program to date?  At this point, participants are still working on presentation topics that will interest the average high school student and will highlight the experience and expertise of the presenter.  We are working on presentations on basic budgeting, investments, credit cards, career planning, among others. Our goal is to roll the program out to the high schools in April, which is Rhode Island's financial literacy month. We did pilot one test program; in which a senior from Providence College and a CPA presented a program for tenth graders at Temple Agudas Achim in Attleboro. The program was tailored to the request of the group and focused on credit cards and banking; it was very well received. The organizers were very pleased with the program and felt that the college student was really able to connect with the tenth graders, which made them much more receptive to the message. 
 
How can Colleges, CPA's and High Schools get involved?  The best way is to email Denise Jacobson at the Rhode Island Society of CPAs at djacobson@riscpa.org to let her know how they would like to be involved and indicate any preference for a particular college or high school they’d like to work with.