Transcript: Mayor Adams, DCWP, NYC Public Schools Unveil 'Financial Literacy For Youth' Initiative, Announce First School Districts to Recieve Financial Educators for Students

June 18, 2025

Jalen Waters: Good morning. My name is Jalen Waters, I'm a senior here at Brooklyn Collegiate, and today I just want to briefly share how financial literacy has impacted me and shaped the way that I think about my future. Over the past year, I've spent a lot of time reading books, exploring money magazines, and watching financial content on YouTube. These resources have helped me understand the value of saving, investing, and managing my money wisely. 

As I'm about to graduate, and I'm entering a new chapter in my life, these lessons have become more important than ever, because I've learned that ignorance about money can be expensive. Financial freedom is one of my biggest goals that I strive to achieve, and I know it starts with the decisions that I make today. 

Whether it's saving 70 percent of the money that I earn, and living on the remaining 30 percent, or choosing to live below my means now, so that I can live on my own terms later. I know the habits that I build today will do all the shaping of my future. 

Most importantly, I've realized that becoming wealthy isn't just about working harder, it's about having my money work for me. That means investing more than I save, saving more than I spend, and spending less than I think that I need to. 

Learning these financial lessons has completely changed my mindset and given me the tools to build a strong foundation for my future. I also believe that the next generation of students deserve the same opportunity to learn these skills. And what better place to do so than right in their schools, where the knowledge is easily accessible and no longer something that they have to go searching for. Thank you. Now I would like to introduce Mayor Eric Adams. 

Mayor Eric Adams: Jalen said it all. We can bounce, man. You know, that is the quality of the product we have in our public schools. And no one can say it better. An amazing job of just articulating the role of making sure you're financially sound when you leave school. And I remember leaving school and my credit score was dismal. 

I remember my son Jordan, when he went to American University, as soon as we entered the college campus, there were all the credit card companies that were there. And his credit score was hurting when he graduated. But financial literacy is everything. And Commissioner Mayuga, this is her baby, you know, she believed in this so much. And to do this is really empowering for our young people. And, you know, as we move to identify the best way to raise children and families in our city, we teach our children and our scholars, we teach them chemical bonds but not stocks and bonds. And being academically smart and not emotionally intelligent and really invested in the full personhood of our young people, we're setting them up for failure. 

There's so many challenges out there, and your success is not going to just depend on how you are academically smart. If you're not able to save money for college, to save money to buy a house, to save money to invest in the future and be prepared for your retirement, what you should do as early as possible, if you're not ready for that, you're going to just add so much stress on yourself. And it was really just unfortunate that throughout the years, we never leaned into financial literacy. 

We allowed our children to go K-12, and then once they left college, they had to figure it out. Once they left high school, they had to figure everything out on their own, not how to open a checking account, not how to invest. And now we're moving into new money, cryptocurrency and bitcoins and all of these other new forms of money. And so what we're doing and what the commissioner has done is just really giving our young people the best chance to succeed. 

That's the goal, the best chance to succeed in this environment. And so we have to learn both. We have to learn treasury bonds and chemical bonds. We have to learn how to save, how to use our money and not how to wear our capital, how to spend money on those items that are not going to be great investments, how to make sure that our dollars go in the right direction. And that's the goal of what we are doing today. 

So this year, we set a new goal, make sure that every public school student can learn how to save and spend money by 2030. Our financial literacy for youth, or we can call it FLY. Those are some fly sweatshirts, t-shirts you're wearing. We call it a FLY initiative. It would get us there. This includes putting a financial educator in every school district. And today we announced the first 15 school districts to receive financial educators starting this opening school year. 

The 15 districts are all across the city from Staten Island to the Bronx. They all have high rates of New Yorkers without bank accounts. And soon they will have a financial educator. Educators will provide free counseling, free workshops, and help create curriculum. They will work closely with students, families, and teachers. 

The next time this year, when students in these 15 districts have questions about opening a bank account or buying their first stock, they will have someone to call, someone to speak with, and someone to help them navigate through the process. With FLY, we'll put an educator in every school district. And also we will launch an in-school bank pilot to give students real-world exposure to banking directly in their schools. All part of our work. 

This is what we have done when we are focusing on young people. 15,000 of our young people are part of the Future Ready NYC program. You look at 100,000 of our young people are employed in our Summer Youth Employment. Many of them are in city agencies, so they're learning how government operates and work. And 15,000 young people are in our apprenticeship program to learn the basic skills of navigating, of being in an office environment. And so setting them up for success and not setting them up for failure is our focus. 

We have really looked at all the things that our young scholars need to not only be leaders of tomorrow, but they're leaders of today, as we just saw with Jalen. Articulate, smart, creative, all they're asking for. Give us the tools to succeed and we will take you from there. So I'm excited at this program. I cannot thank the commission enough for doing this. She carried it around for nine months and now you delivered your baby. 

The baby is here and we're going to make sure that baby grows up strong and healthy. We're also joined by Pastor Hamatheite, who has adopted this school, one of our local pastors here in the area. He understands that the connectivity between our faith-based institutions and strengthening the bonds with our children is part of the whole aspect of developing their full personhood. Academic intelligence without emotional intelligence is a failure for the future of our young people. We want to give them both. I want to turn it over to the amazing commissioner.

Commissioner Vilda Vera Mayuga, Department of Consumer and Worker Protection: Thank you so much, Mayor Adams. Yes, this is my baby. Good morning, everyone. My name is Vilda Vera Mayuga. I'm commissioner of the most amazing agency, the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. 

We are so thrilled to be here. I am so ridiculously just excited to be here at Brooklyn Collegiate as we unveil something that is, you've heard the mayor say, it is very near and dear to my heart. It's a new program to financially empower our city's public school students that aptly name financial literacy for youth or FLY. I can't do that. I can deliver it as well as others, but it's FLY. It's the way we like to call it. 

You know, our agency, DCWP, has been a long leader in helping New Yorkers make the most of their money. And since 2008, our financial empowerment centers have helped tens of thousands of New Yorkers improve their credit, reducing their debt by more than $120 million, and increasing their savings by more than $13 million. 

This is all through our free one-on-one counseling, financial counseling services. But for too long, young people have been left out of our efforts to financially empower our neighbors. With FLY, we will make sure that our city's children are able to reach for the clouds and soar towards their financial goals. The mayor said by 2030, every public school student will have access to the tools and resources they need to learn how to save and spend money. 

And to get there, we have partnered, DCWP, with NYC public schools so that we can see this initiative and do it through an innovative and multi-pronged approach. As you heard the mayor beginning in January of this year, we're going to have those 15 financial educators in distinct school districts. They're going to have that specialized training to really deliver on workshops and have experience working with not just the youth but their family to really spur this effort so that we can foster a financially healthy environment for all of our school children. 

We anticipate that each of these financial educators will start working with a few schools in each district and then scale up their efforts over time. And eventually, every district will have a financial educator assigned to it and all, every single one of our public school students and their families will have access to these crucial resources. 

As you heard the mayor, very excited also of the part two of this piloting in-school banking in some of these very same districts with high rates of unbanked households. We have unfortunately a very high rate in New York City, almost 10 percent throughout our city. And this will offer students real-world exposure and access to safe and affordable banking options. Those two pieces are critical to banking all of our New Yorkers. We'll have more to share on this in the coming months. And finally, we will continue to explore additional ways to give students hands-on experience learning about saving and managing money. Many of you have heard the mayor reference landing the plane. \

Well, through FLY, we are building the runway for children to take off towards a financially healthy adulthood. Thank you to Mayor Adams, who has been so invested in this work and uplifting families. Deputy Mayor Adolfo Carrion, for his leadership and support in making FLY a reality. And our school's chancellor, representing here, Jane, thank you, chief of student pathways. Chancellor Aviles-Ramos, for her shared commitment to youth financial empowerment. And I really have to also pause and thank my team. So many of you are here. They've just worked tirelessly. Really, just listening to me, sitting with me, and giving shape to this vision of bringing financial empowerment to our youth. 

Like I said, it's very dear and personal to me. My daughter is here, Pilar. My son is in school today. I'm going to take him out. And my husband, they heard me so many times talking about this. And it's just, it's really wonderful to see it. Really want to just encourage public school families to visit nyc.gov slash FLY to learn more about this new program. 

And all New Yorkers who are 18 and older to already, please visit nyc.gov/talkmoney for more information on financial empowerment centers. Make that appointment. I'm a client myself. It is life-changing. And with that, I would love to have Wayside Church Pastor Hamatheite. Thank you. Hamatheite. I said I was going to do it right.

Pastor Zidde Hamatheite: Good morning. To our wonderful Mayor, Mayor Adams, and to our commissioner, and to our deputy mayor, and to our Principal of Brooklyn Collegiate, Ms. Newsome. Newman, and to her staff, and to all of you. I am excited, ecstatic, and overwhelmed with joy to be here for this wonderful occasion. 

My name is Reverend M. Zidde Hamatheite. I'm the pastor of Wayside Baptist Church. And the reason why I'm excited is because this is my adopted school that we adopted years ago with Wayside. And we try to do everything we can. And when I heard this information, it was just wonderful to be here. I am a product of the Board of Education. That's now Department of Education. I worked in this very building under District 23, under superintendents. And I served as the attendance teacher for District 23. I'm a former teacher for District 16. And I've served on several boards for the Chancellor's Office. And definitely have served with our wonderful mayor on the Interfaith Board currently. And we're grateful to be here. 

This is a program that is overwhelmingly exciting because this program is empowering our young people. And I am one who is excited about it because I have never heard of such a thing in school, of being able to finance and help our young people to be able to receive finances and obtain finances and have a bank account. 

I've been preaching since I was 14 years old. And I wish that I had a bank account. I wish I had a savings account, a high-yield savings account. I would be owning this school if I knew that at 14. So it is great. I'm just really excited that it's able to happen here. And I just want to say, as pastor of Wayside Baptist Church, we're a few blocks down. And we have seen the disparity of our young people not having the proper funding for food, for clothing, for what have you. And so I am personally involved in this, and I am personally going to be trying to help as much as I can to make sure that all of our young people, especially in this community, have such a thing. 

Thank you, Brother mayor, for this. And so that's why today this announcement is vitally important. It will help give the children a stronger foundation to build their lives on. That means a safer foundation. It means a more stable foundation. And it means that they will be able to feel a certain independence at a certain age. 

When you have a certain level of independence, you're able to succeed in life. And you're able to stand on your own to a level and help in your community. And you're able to have a foundational strength in your identity. When young people are able to know that they can accurately spend their money on things that makes them feel empowered, you have a young person that's going somewhere in society. 

So therefore, Brother mayor, thank you so much for leading in this whole work that's going on. And commissioner, thank you. And thank you to the teachers and to all of the financial educators that will be a part of this program. We are looking forward to being a part of this program. God bless you. Turn it back to the hands of our mayor. Thank you.

Question: I was wondering what the recruitment process for the educators will look like. And, you know, like what criteria are you looking at and things like that. 

Commissioner Vera Mayuga: So we're building on our almost two decades of experience with our financial empowerment centers. We have existing partnerships that have financial counselors. And so we will be leveraging those relationships to hire and contract with those community-based organizations and have them bring in the experts that have the knowledge and not just financial empowerment, but also working with youth and families.

Question: And one more for the mayor. On the topic of finances, is there a reason the governor came to the Comptroller’s meeting yesterday and not you? 

Mayor Adams: Because she's the governor. I'm the mayor. Next question. Thank you, guys.