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Davie High School (North Carolina) hosted four Financial Reality Fairs for a total of 174 high school students. The program called Mad City Money, sponsored by the Winston-Salem based Members Credit Union, is a two hour interactive simulation that provides students with a glimpse of what it’s like to be an adult managing personal and family finances.

The program first took place on Monday, January 6 for 48 students and then was repeated three times on Thursday, January 9 for 40 to 46 students at a time. Each student was given a new identity with a family, occupation, salary, debt, and medical insurance co-payments and challenged to make financial decisions to meet their family’s needs. (Note: see event coverage in the Winston-Salem Journal by clicking here.)

\"Financial literacy is important for high school students because in the very near future they will be responsible for their own finances, and many of them have very little knowledge of how to manage money or what their everyday expenses will consist of,” remarked Paula O’Rorke, Business Education Teacher at Davie High School. \"The pressure from direct marketing solicitations to take on credit card debt