Rock Concerts Teach Finance to Area Students

Finance and fun. Those are two words you don’t expect to hear together – but that’s exactly what you get when you pair a rock concert with lessons on financial literacy.
Dubbed the ‘coolest financial advisors in America’ in a recent Wall Street Journal article, the band GOODING is making finance fun for students through two financial literacy rock concerts this week. The concerts will be at Powell High School on September 6 and at the Hyart Theater for Lovell High School students on September 7.
The band is named after its lead singer, who goes simply by his last name, and they use the power of a live rock performance and their own personal stories to inspire young people with lessons of finance and discipline.
The events are sponsored by Big Horn Federal and in partnership with the nonprofit organization Funding the Future. John Coyne with Big Horn Federal says this is not the first time the bank has sponsored one of these concerts –and he sees the value of Gooding’s methods.

According to Coyne, the concert includes a multimedia presentation and conversations with the students, in which they discuss predatory lending, the danger of credit card debt, the benefits to saving early, and the myth of rock stars, athletes and actors who sell the false image of overnight success.

On their website, the band says that students who don’t receive this message of financial responsibility early often drop out of college and return to the same cycle of financial irresponsibility as their parents, noting that children from lower income households are especially at risk.