In April 2015, the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians (OST) in partnership with the Colville Tribes Enrollment Program and Omak High School in Omak, Washington, offered the largest $pending Frenzy financial simulation to date. Over the course of two days and six events, the entire student body of 517 students at Omak High School, situated adjacent to the Colville Reservation, participated in the financial reality fair.
The original concept for the $pending Frenzy reality fair was created by First Nations Development Institute and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to offer youth with large impending minor’s trust payments an opportunity to practice handling a substantial lump sum of money and spending it wisely. In the simulation, high school students are given $40,000 in fake money and are asked to make spending decisions to purchase a car, a house, groceries and other items. Students can practice visiting a bank to cash their check and deposit a share of their money into savings, and are also given the opportunity to learn about investing a portion of their money. The $pending Frenzy at Omak High School even featured a legal booth run with assistance from Colville Tribes Attorney Jamie Edmonds.
Since the first pilot of the $pending Frenzy with Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians youth in 2010, the financial simulation has been offered about two dozen times in 10 different states and 13 unique communities across the country. In total, more than 1,200 Native youth have participated in the event and learned to better manage their money. The program has caught fire in 2015, with seven $pending Frenzy events already in the books, including three in the month of April.
First Nations is grateful for the support of Raylene Swan and Margie Hutchinson of the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians in helping the $pending Frenzy reach a growing number of tribal communities and Native youth across the nation. To meet the increasing demand to offer the financial reality fair, First Nations is in the process of developing a $pending Frenzy workshop kit. The full workshop kit will be available for sale and will contain everything a facilitator needs to organize and run a $pending Frenzy event – including instructions, booth materials, play money, budgeting cards, and $pending Frenzy merchandise. Stay tuned for news on the release of the $pending Frenzy kit!
By Benjamin Marks, First Nations Senior Research Officer
Is this also to find out the spending habits of tribes? Just saying, besides learning financial planning, is the information/study/program, open to marketing sponsors and capitalist, for the sign up? Just curious and skeptical after so many false tongues. Fake money to find out spending habits of Native tribes, to get the capitalist jump on the future economy, sounds more like these past viper capitalist ventures. They never do anything for humanity without a cost to environmental native owned resources, after selling their own globally. Just tread careful my people, the” bridge of trust” needs “NEW” infrastructural “Bridge Of Trust” unbreakable treaties as well as the Treaties/ones already on the books enforced. They are after the water, land and whatever is under it. Please be careful in this tricky 21st century. Paleface speak w/false tongue, is not a fable as you know.
No Joke.
Q.”How do you know a capitalist is lying?
A. “They open their mouths to make a deal.”