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A partnership between local high schools and VyStar Credit Union brings real-world banking to Northeast Florida youth. Learn how it's shaping students' futures and filling industry gaps.
Seventeen years ago, VyStar Credit Union opened a new branch identical to all its others, but this one came with one catch: it was opened at Bartram High School in St. Johns County.
The branch’s debut was the launch of a philanthropic initiative meant to bridge real-world financial education experience with Northeast Florida’s youth, effectively setting the groundwork for a future workforce pipeline.
Called the VyStar Academy of Business High School Program, its footprint today spans 19 schools in eight districts, including Duval. Though isolated from public use, each branch is a fully functional credit union open internally to the school community and managed almost entirely by students.
Selena Lo was one of them, working at the Mandarin High School branch as a junior and senior starting in 2022.
“I joined it, and it honestly did so much more than I thought it would,” she said. “It boosted my confidence. It gave me life skills that I never thought I would ever get and it gave me a direction of where I wanted to go in my life with my career.”
October saw the opening of Duval County’s sixth high school branch with VyStar, this one located at Riverside High School.
Twelve student interns handle the majority of running each branch, are trained over the summer and work through the school year, explained Jill Fierle, the director of career and technical education at Duval County Public Schools.
Each is run as part of a curriculum and students earn course credit plus compensation on weekends, after school and on holidays, said Matthew Rathjen, VyStar’s vice president of the program.
“These students are earning industry certifications during this as well,” said Fierle. “And so it really fills that talent gap that a lot of industries are experiencing through early preparation.”
Described as a “win-win-win” by program leaders for every party involved, it serves a dual purpose by training potential future employees and delivering financial education.
It’s funded entirely by VyStar at no cost to the schools and the capital investment totals about $620,000 within the first five years, per school, according to Rathjen.
In 2023, the Jacksonville-based credit union invested $1.34 million in the program, an amount that includes capital investments, scholarships, teacher stipends and student compensation, according to a spokesperson.
Since its inception, the Jacksonville-based credit union said it’s provided over 2,200 paid internships, delivered financial education to more than 143,000 students and hired over 100 high school graduates specifically from this program.
“The impact has been, it’s really immeasurable,” Rathjen said. “Not to sound cheesy, but we’re talking about the direct impact on someone’s life, and not everything that counts can be counted. It doesn’t show up on a spreadsheet, but when you help a student intern become better prepared for their future, both regarding financial education as well as being ready to enter the marketplace as a wise consumer, then enter the workforce and have that head start.”
But leaders of the program said its impact stems beyond each school and into the homes of students’ classmates and their families too. From talking to their peers about financial literacy and building public speaking skills to having conversations about finances with their parents, those involved praised the program.
“This partnership with VyStar is, in my opinion, the gold standard and how you support career and technical education,” said Fierle. “Because when a company comes in and sees the value of what you’re doing in K-12 education and how it impacts the greater good in industry, that’s when you get these positive outcomes, support like that, it truly moves the needle.”
Today, Lo is a finance major at the University of North Florida with a goal of becoming a loan officer.
“It was just the most beneficial program that I think every kid should have the opportunity to go through,” she said. “We worked alongside real five-star employees on the weekends and we got to learn so much, even just from them: gaining customer experience knowledge that you can never get anywhere else at such a young age is the best thing in the world.”
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