Choosing the Sammy Rabbit books and materials, from the It’s a Habit! Company and the Texas Jumpstart Coalition, as the focus of their project, Amanda Carpenter, Natasha Hernandez, and Beka Wright designed and built a training session around the character. Guiding them was their family and consumer sciences teacher Jane Carter, who is also a Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) Chapter Advisor. The students then conducted presentations to 60 second graders in their local community, which caught the attention of the author, Sam X Renick.  A visit by him and the character to the school was set up when presentations were made at the elementary and middle schools.

With such an enthusiastic reception, the ninth graders were encouraged and entered the local competition for the Focus on Children STAR (Students Taking Action with Recognition) event, sponsored by the FCCLA. Passing the local event, they competed against five other schools at the regional level and were chosen to compete at the state level, where 30 teams would be present. With only the top scoring team would advance to the national competition and, in July, the students were off to Anaheim, California, where teams from every state, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands were evaluated by a panel of judges.

Amanda, Natasha, and Beka prepared a display showing evidence of the projects’ activities, made an oral presentation on the process and results, and answered judges questions, a challenging task for anyone, let alone a group of high school freshmen. Finally, at the awards ceremony, it was announced that the San Saba team had received three perfect scores and Amanda, Natasha, and Beka were awarded the gold medal.

Now they had one more trip to make, for the team was selected to present their project to approximately 400 teachers in Dallas at the end of July. To thunderous applause they delivered their speech at the Tri-Cluster Professional Development Conference. Bringing their prize back home meant their teachers could also share in their accomplishments, and thus remind the educators of their own mission to inspire and guide.

It was a glorious ride down a wonderful road for three ninth graders from a city of 2,000 people deep in central Texas. It is an occasion that they will not soon forget. And it all started with a little baseball-capped rabbit, and a coalition of organizations determined to bring financial education to Texas’ youth. The Texas Credit Union Foundation funds the Sammy Rabbit program through the Texas Association of Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America.

About Texas Credit Union Foundation

The Texas Credit Union Foundation is the 501(c)(3) charitable foundation representing the state’s credit unions.  The Foundation, whose mission is empowering people to improve their financial well being, supports financial education initiatives throughout Texas, with special emphasis on encouraging credit union staff and members to volunteer their time teaching financial education in the schools. The Foundation is an affiliated organization of the Texas Credit Union League. For more information, visit www.tcuf.coop, write to us at 4455 LBJ Freeway, Suite 1100, Dallas, Texas 75244, or call us at 469-385-6400.