As graduation looms just around the corner for high school seniors, students are being faced with multiple important decisions that will shape their futures. Whether they take the college route or head straight into careers, one thing they will all need to understand is how to manage their finances.

Franklin County’s Community Spirit Bank has been making an effort for years now to increase local students’ financial literacy.

Among its efforts, the bank is now in its second year of having an in-school bank branch at Red Bay.

“Emphasizing financial literacy has become a major area of focus for us in the last few years. We believe helping our next generation become financially educated while they are young will benefit them their entire life,” vice president and senior marketing director Emily Mays said.

Mays said CSB uses its financial literacy EverFi Program in 10 different schools, seven of which are in Alabama. To date the program has reached 3,360 students who have completed 24,619 financial education modules, which equates to about 17,944 hours of financial study.

EverFi is a national financial literacy platform based out of Washington D.C. It uses a digital platform and media technology with video gaming aspects like avatars, gaming animation and results based on participants’ decisions regarding real-life financial situations.

“It gives all students a little bit more banking information and background,” Mays said.

The students learn and are assessed in more than 600 financial education topics. They must complete certain modules over a six-week period, and they receive a certificate of completion at the end if they pass the final quiz. Students also receive a set of earbuds at the beginning of the school year and financial scholar T-shirts.

The certificates, earbuds and T-shirts, however, aren’t the real prize.

“We want to encourage a generation of financially responsible adults,” Mays said. “The reward for them is to know how to live within their means, free from anxieties of debt and secure in their futures.”

The EverFi program works hand-in-hand with the in-school bank at RBHS, which Mays said functions like a real-world bank.

Business and marketing education teacher Sarah Hardin is the in-school facilitator at the bank. She helps students learn normal bank functions like opening accounts and handling withdrawals and deposits, as well as how the vault system works.

Mays said the in-school bank also teaches student workers about customer service skills, professionalism, how to apply for jobs and how to craft résumés.

“We critique them on these things so they come away with the skills they need to improve,” Mays said.

She also spends time in individual classrooms talking to the students about basic banking and life skills. One topic she stresses is digital citizenship and what kind of digital footprint every person leaves behind.

“You need to treat your social media as if everyone can see it,” Mays said. “Be who you want to be all of the time.”

Through EverFi and the in-school bank, students meet the requirements they must have as part of their mandatory career preparedness classes in high school.