Summer fun for future Fed chiefs? Maybe.
If sprinklers, Slip’N Slides and the other joys of summer aren’t wonky enough for your kids, there’s always Fed camp. The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond runs a summer program for kids in grades K-8. It’s a field-trip destination, with half-day workshops meant to boost children’s basic financial literacy.
Outreach specialist Angela Collier gathers a group of rising kindergarteners around her at the Richmond Fed. They’re four- and five-year-olds in bright orange T-shirts, visiting from Camp Primrose.
In her best ‘this-is-awesome’ voice she tells them, “We’re gonna be talking about goods. And services. And consumers and producers and spending and saving.”
Oh yeah, it’s Fed boot camp.
“Uh, I wouldn’t call it Fed boot camp,” Melanie Rose quickly corrects. She oversees the Richmond Fed’s economic education programs, including its Summer Camp Challenge.
Is she at least scouting for the next Janet Yellen? Or Ben Bernanke?
“Well, if we happen to find one I’m sure we would take him,” she says. “But no.”
Really, this is more like Fed-lite. It’s a chance for almost a thousand kids to stop by, play games about personal finance, and build their economic knowledge. But let’s just say you were secretly grooming future Fed chairs. You’d start young, right?
Step One: Establish everyone’s weight in gold.
“Probably all of you weigh about … one and a half, maybe two gold bars,” Collier tells the 40-pound kindergarteners. They’re standing in front of a gold brick that weighs 401.75 troy ounces.
Now that they’ve got the gold standard down, it’s time for Step Two: Master the difference between a good and a service.
A good, Collier says, is “something you can touch and feel and take home. Can you think of anything that would be an example of a good?” she asks.
“Play dough?” suggests camper A.J. Salvatto.
“Play dough is a great example of a good!” Collier cries.
Well done, A.J. Save that kid a space on the Federal Open Market Committee.
Step Three: Practice. The kids turn over cards, with pictures of cars and clocks and waiters. They try to identify goods and services. There are a lot of question marks in their little voices.
“Uh, a service?” asks one.
“A good?” asks a bunch of them.
Camper Tony Cavero nails it. He holds up pictures of firefighters.
“Are they providing a good or a service?” Angela Callier asks.
“A service,” he replies.
Tony Cavero: destined for the Board of Governors.
Now, older kids come through the Fed summer camp challenge too. But these little guys showed so much promise, we asked them about the biggest lesson learned from their day at the Richmond Fed.
Like Skanda Athreya, whose dad is an economist there, they all mention the same thing: the bus ride.
“I learned on the bus, when the driver’s driving, don’t distract your driver, ‘cause it can make him get in a car crash,” Skanda says.
Which in the coded language of Fed-speak says a whole lot about how to manage the economy.
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