 There is one person that really has been asking me, what is the new name of CFL? That's Seymour Roganji. He asked me, Dad, you need to tell me the name. I said, it's a secret. And many of you have asked me when I said we are in a process of changing the name. And even some of the funders were here, they said, what is the new name? I said the new name would not be revealed until May 8th. Community Financial Literacy officially is going to change its name to Prosperity Main, the Center for Financial Education. I'm very, very excited. Thank you all for coming tonight. 10 years seems like yesterday, and it means a lot to me. To the Board of Prosperity Main. To the staff and many of the volunteers who have spent their time volunteering for this organization. I would like to start by thanking all the sponsors for this special event. Special thanks goes to our lead sponsor, Heneford. If you can hold your applause until we finish all the sponsor because we have a long list. Our all the sponsors, IDEX and KeyBank, are Bayside sponsors, Infinity, Federal Credit Union, Main Credit Union League, UBS, Noway Savings Bank, Machaya Savings Bank. We also have many organizations on the Rosemont sponsorship that you can see on the board, including Seaport, UNEM, Poland Financial Group, and the other group that you saw. Thank you. And finally, we have also the Deering Sponsorship. All of your support, please welcome me to thank them for the wonderful support for this organization. I also want to thank all the volunteers. This work cannot be done by Claude alone, or the work we have done was not done by Claude, and I do not want to take any credit for this. It's a collective work. All the volunteers who have supported the organization, thank you so much. But let me ask all the founding board members who are still on the board, ten years later to stand up so they can be recognized. We have Reverend Mutima, we have Enko Kanakan, we have Karen Anderson, we have Scott Kerr, I'm not sure if he's still in the room, and we have our chairman of the board, Bill Brown. Please give them applause If we can say that today we are celebrating our 10th anniversary, these folks have been on board since then, and they continue to be committed for the work of this organization. I also want to acknowledge everybody who is on the current board and advisory board and also staff. Please, if you can stand up to be recognized. The current board, the staff and the advisory board, please, if you can stand up. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Finally, I want to recognize all the students who have taken any course at community financial literacy now prosperity main if you can rise where you are. Everybody who has taken a class, please stand up so you can be recognized. If you took a class, honey, you better stand up. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Each one of these students have a story to tell, and you're going to hear from some of them tonight on a podium when they go on stage to share their personal stories and accomplishments with community financial literacy. These are the future of Maine. These are the future of Maine's economy. These are the future of the workforce of tomorrow. I also want to acknowledge all the vendors who are here tonight. Special thanks, they are there. Special thanks goes to Sea Glass with Sally, who is our event coordinator. I also want to shout a special thanks for one of our students who even took the video that we saw who was in our class and is also a photographer. Vee, please if you can stand up. I also want to take this opportunity to recognize any elected officials who might be in the room. I know that we have a representative from Senator King and also I was expecting some city councilors if they are here please you can rise so we can recognize you. Thank you. I want to say that many of the funders and the donors always want to know what is the impact that your organization is having in the organization or in the community. Prosperity Main has done a lot. I want to show you some of the accomplishment we have done in the last few years. Since Prosperity Main started, excuse me, we have helped over 3,000 people in our programs. Many of these people didn't even have a bank account when they came to us. Nor did they even have any credit history. I'm proud to say that many of these people are now working and also contributing to the economy of the state. Let me highlight one of the books that you saw over there. I have so many partnerships with so many organizations but I want to highlight and individually adjust cost enterprises. Thank you. We've been working with the cost enterprises for a few years. Together we have accomplished a lot. We were able to help about 190 families of which between the matching savings they made together and their savings, we have helped. It's a total of saving of 1,136,000. Of which they purchased assets that total 1.6 million. All these assets they purchased are here in Maine. Thank you very much. I hope that I saw many of our funders, our sponsors, our donors. I'm sure that they see how much impact prosperity Maine, the Center for Financial Education is doing in the community and we continue to do more. Why did we change our name? We changed our name to reflect the evolution of our work since we started 10 years ago. As well as the increased diversity of the client we serve, we are rebranding community financial literacy to prosperity Maine, the Center for Financial Education. Our new name reflects the broad scope of services that the organization provides to our core clients and demographic. The immigrants, our salee, refugees and even recently our low income menors. At the beginning, we're only providing financial literacy and one-on-one counseling, but later on we realize that it was not enough. Financial education was good, but not good enough. So 10 years ago I had a vision that all men's immigrant and refugees, their families and the communities could reach financial stability and improve their quality of life. The vision was great, but the mission was narrow. That's why we wanted to build a prosperous Maine with all of us together. The Prosperity Men, thank you. Prosperity Men, board and staff, including yourself who are here tonight, I ask you to start tonight to just spread the word and welcome us in the next journey of Prosperity Maine so that they know what used to be as CFL is now Prosperity Maine. I'm going now to call Helen to come on stage so that she can introduce the next speaker. Thank you very much. Good evening, everybody. My name is Helen Andrioli. I'm the vice chair of the board at Prosperity Maine, as we are now known. I'm also a member of the marketing and development committee that helped put this event together. Yesterday we received an unexpected but a very welcome request to add a couple minutes to the program. So it is with my great pleasure from Senator King's office for a special acknowledgement. Senator King was so sorry he couldn't be here because he very much wanted to acknowledge what a major, major contribution you and your organization have made to truly, truly making Maine the land of opportunity for many, many people and we thank you deeply. So this is a small token of this appreciation. I would like to present to you. It already has a typo because it says congratulations to Community for Financial Literacy. We can fix that. On the occasion of its 10th anniversary supporting vulnerable immigrants in creating opportunities for economic and social integration into our community through financial education, good practice and setting aspirations for this gratitude, United States Senator Angus King. Thank you. I'm honored to receive this recognition. I should say that the 2017 was the year of leadership at Prosperity Maine because we're so well recognized by many organizations including the Chamber. Now, as you know every year there are awards to many organizations that have supported Prosperity Maine. Tonight I'm going to invite my friend Sheri to come forward and announce the winner of this year's award. Please welcome. Good afternoon. How about those performers, huh? I live in Portland, Maine. I could not be more proud of myself. I'm joined today by some other Hanifurt associates that are in the room as I look around. I want you to know that we are all extremely proud and honored to be here with you tonight to celebrate the work of Prosperity Maine and bring awareness to that. Claude we are so proud to partner with you and to all of those volunteers and other supporters for making a difference for new manors. Community is so important to all of us at Hanifurt. Being in the grocery business we're fortunate to often see firsthand the unique fabric that weaves through each community that we serve. We often see people connecting planned and unplanned in our stores and we love that. We work to foster that through in-store fundraising and array of dietician services and other initiatives. We have amazing associates that really care deeply about their communities. They inspire us every day to dive deeper to find new and creative ways to make a greater impact. We are also inspired by new manors who are building lives in these communities contributing their hard work and intelligence to our state starting businesses and giving of themselves through their own volunteer efforts and friendship. The new manors that have joined us at Hanifurt bring knowledge and skills to the workplace that have enhanced our business and shown us new and different perspectives to ensure that we are meeting the needs of all of our customers. We strongly believe in leaders like Claude across the city and many others that are in this room tonight who demonstrate through your actions the strength and beauty of diversity. We appreciate that you are working hard to build social and economic stability to the state that we all love so much. Thank you for working to create a future that helps us and our children to prosper. Thank you all for being here tonight and thank you for all that you do to keep your communities healthy. So as Claude mentioned I have the distinct honor and pleasure tonight to help Prosperity Maine recognize some some folks. These annual awards were created to give organizations individuals or businesses that have demonstrated excellence in serving or partnering with Prosperity Maine to provide opportunities to refugees immigrants and asylees. The first award that I'm giving out tonight or we are giving out tonight you're joining me up here right Claude is the Commitment to Service Award Community Financial Literacy now known as Prosperity Maine was founded in 2008 at Claude's residence on Forest Avenue. The most immediate need to nurture the success of the organization was office space. Recognizing that the mission of Portland Housing Authority aligned with CFL's mission Claude approached Mark Adelson in early 2009. At that time Mark was Deputy Director of PHA. Being newly established Claude had very little to show for CFL's credibility. With only the mission and a clear vision of CFL's potential impact to support his request Claude asked PHA to provide the office space. Mark's belief in the work was immediately evident and he didn't hesitate to help. PHA provided office space for two years until CFL moved to the Vesta Housing location on Cumberland Avenue in 2012. The PHA and Mark Adelson for believing in the mission they have played a vital role in the organization's continued success. The 2017 Commitment to Service Award goes to Portland Housing Authority. Please join me in welcoming PHA Executive Director Mark Adelson to the stage to receive this award. Thank you so much. Good evening on behalf of the Portland Housing Authority Board of Commissioners and staff I want to thank CFL for this wonderful award. We're truly honored by this recognition. PHA is in its 75th year providing affordable housing to Portland residents through the properties we own and manage on the other programs the vouchers we administer now over 3200 departments in Portland are we work with in all we house and impact the lives of 6200 residents in Portland in all aspects of housing from homelessness to home ownership. On its most fundamental level providing affordable housing is about the opportunity for success. It provides the stability to get an education, a job and the services needed to succeed. We've been helping to house the refugee and immigrant community in more torn countries across the globe for almost 50 years. It's been an important part of our work. We have wonderful tenants that work hard to improve the lives of their families and are thankful for any assistance they receive. For PHA it's never been just about putting a roof over head. Residence services are a critical part of our agency's mission. We help lay the ground work for success with our services and programs but we can't do it on our own. We need and rely on community partners like CFL to help our residents take the next steps to provide targeted services to move our residents further down the road to success. Other valued partners include Portland Adult Ed Boys and Girls Clubs Greater Portland Health just to name a few and there's so many more. Many years ago we recognized that when it comes to the most important things that our residents need to succeed, financial literacy is near the top of the list and we're glad that 10 years ago CFL stepped in to fill that need. You do an amazing job helping our residents and other new mayors teaching them the systems and linking them with other resources that can help. We're proud to call CFL our partners. We're proud to work with you. Congratulations on your 10th anniversary wishing you 50 more years of success and thank you again for this wonderful recognition. Our next award is the Outstanding Community Partner Award. Coastal Enterprise Incorporated has partnered at CEI has partnered with CFL now Prosperity Maine for over six years. The partnership was made possible by Claude's friend and mentor former CEO of Coastal Enterprise Ron Phillips. CEI helps to grow good jobs environmentally sustainable enterprises and shared prosperity in Maine and in rural regions across the country by integrating financing business and industry expertise and policy solutions. CEI envisions a world in which communities are economically and environmentally healthy enabling all people especially those with low income to reach their full potential. Prosperity Maine and CEI and this is Claude mentioned this earlier I'll say it again Prosperity Maine and CEI have helped asylees and refugees with savings and matching funds totaling $1,136,000. Amazing, right? Together they have helped 190 individuals and families purchase assets valued at $1.6 million that makes it pretty understandable why the 2017 Outstanding Community Partner Award goes to Coastal Enterprise Please join me in welcoming Jennifer Sporzinski Senior VP of Workforce and Business Development Services to the stage to receive this award. Good evening. At CEI I would like to congratulate Prosperity Maine on this important 10 year anniversary. Thank you Claude and Clamont and the entire CFL team for giving CEI the Outstanding Partner Award I can say we're truly honored to receive this and be recognized by you in this way Claude but I'm up here accepting the award and I do actually feel like we need to acknowledge that this award really goes to Jill Lorum who is our IDA coordinator at CEI and she's in the audience today. Jill helped initiate that relationship with Prosperity Maine and the connection with Claude with a simple contract for Claude because back then Claude was teaching the classes to teach financial literacy classes to our IDA participants that was in 2009 and to where we are now a fully integrated partnership with our IDA program at Prosperity Maine Jill recognized the potential of Prosperity Maine and really Claude before many had heard of them and she wanted to support that endeavor for many years together we've worked hard to develop that contract relationship more into a working partnership on the IDA program the partnership we've CEI and CEF Prosperity Maine's expertise together and has resulted in such amazing outcomes from the community as already highlighted today again thank you for the award and congratulations to Prosperity Maine on providing much needed services in Maine on building a team and a collaboration to where it is today this is not an easy task Claude I hope you enjoy this night and this great celebration thank you let me ask Grace and Sheema to come on stage as I said early these are the junior volunteer at Prosperity Maine Grace came to our office a few days ago to volunteer she was amazed how she was able to do a lot of work that really contributed to this evening also Sheema technically we have a fight every evening at home telling me that he's the staff of CFL and I said you need to volunteer first before you can be a staff so they're going to be handing the awards tonight to those who are going to receive the volunteer of the year this is something that we really take seriously at Prosperity Maine those who work in a non-profit arena know that we cannot succeed without having volunteers the 2017 volunteer of the year goes to Craig Tribuno and Helen and Raoli these two folks I will tell you that this is a surprise Mara Clemore, Paul and I worked so hard to hide the program while Helen was preparing the event so that she doesn't see it and I tried to make sure that if Craig is on one leg that he can be here tonight without telling him that he's going to get an award these two folks have done amazing work even though both of them are new to the board of directors last year I was impressed to see one person cooking for last year's event by himself we didn't pay any penny for last year's event it was through Craig Tribuno please give him a hand thank you Craig Helen is amazing sometimes I wonder whether she works at Prosperity Maine or she's just a volunteer she joined the board after looking for one year to just volunteer on our board and I knew why she waited so long because she had talent and skills that she wanted to show and provide she's amazing the same thing she did last year organizing this event she's the vice chair of the board she's also the chair of the development and marketing committee she works so hard she's a donor she's a committee member she's a board member and she does everything at CFL please let us welcome Craig and Helen on stage to receive these awards we'll say that this was a surprise so I'm not sure if any one of these two will be able to share word because I didn't tell them ahead of time they're more than welcome to do so Craig just nominated me to speak so thanks Craig I was not prepared I did not know they did an amazing job hiding this from me I just want to quickly say that there are a few things that inspire me or have inspired me since I started volunteering and working with Prosperity Maine Mara O'Shea Kamat Nyambe NJ and all of the work that they do so that inspires me and the other thing that inspires me are all of the people I have met through Prosperity Maine and meeting people who are really here working to build new lives and make a better state for all of us to live in so thank you there is one thing that really made me so happy since I started this organization and this work is the work of supporting a Salam Seeker student I've never been happy until when I saw that Prosperity Maine was able to offer full scholarship to few students who are going to SMCC this fall let me welcome my dear friends Wyatt and Megan to come on stage to tell you the winner of the three scholarship going to SMCC Good evening my name is Megan Piper and Wyatt and I have the honor of serving on a Prosperity Maine committee together last year at this event we raised funds towards a new and exciting program the Prosperity Maine Scholarship Fund in conjunction with your contributions and a significant anonymous donation we are very pleased to be awarding three full scholarships to Southern Maine Community College Higher education is key to the success and growth of new manors Prosperity Maine Scholarship Fund seeks to identify candidates with the following qualities hard work ethic resourcefulness academic perseverance leadership and a commitment to one's community the scholarship committee was impressed with the caliber of candidates and the way each one embodied all of these qualities please join me in learning about and congratulating our inspirational scholarship recipients our first Prosperity Maine Scholarship recipient is Madi Farah Madi's teachers report that he is a devoted and responsible learner who is unfailingly polite respectful and cheerful he has a special talent for improving every room he walks into he puts people at ease and makes difficult tasks doable Madi has an insatiable intellectual curiosity and seeks to expand the lab technician skills he learned in his home country into a career in the medical or biology field here in Maine congratulations Madi our next scholarship recipient is Mervedee Bayangana Mervedee is a testament to perseverance resilience and strong academic skills she excelled in her first year at SMCC while working full-time and volunteering in her community she is pursuing a pre-med degree with her sights set on medical school she wants to help build hospitals and in her words make a positive mark on the history of her country and the entire world congratulations and our final 2018 scholarship recipient is Hussein Muhumid enrolled at SMCC Hussein stands out due to his impressive level of intrinsic motivation inspired by his late parents business careers being business administration with a focus on HR management he developed an interest in serving his community early in life and feels a deep obligation to contribute to the well-being of his community and not only his personal success as a teenager he raised funds to cover patients fees at a public hospital in his home country and since his move to Maine he actively participates in a group that shares African culture and has a strong connection with Mainers congratulations and please join me in one more round of applause for our first three ever scholarship winners and I understand that Hussein has some words he'd like to share with us good evening everyone as already mentioned my name is Hussein I moved to Maine in 2016 I started to take ESL classes at Portland Education where I graduated last summer and got my high school diploma from there I'm very honored today to receive this scholarship this scholarship won only allowed me to go to school for free but this also is going to help me to take time and volunteer and contribute back to my community I want to thank to Prosperity Maine for giving me this scholarship I want also thanks to the donors who are giving this money for a student to make a difference in their lives I'm so honored to be here today and I'm so inspired to help others today I want to thank Claude for his job and the staffs of Prosperity Maine and I want to say thanks to everyone I'd just like to say one more thing before Claude comes back up the scholarship committee found it so difficult to choose only three people to receive these scholarships every single person that applied embodied all the qualities that I mentioned earlier and so we hope that you will join with us in raising even more funds this year so that we can award a scholarship to every deserving candidate so as you just heard about these three amazing students who because of your generosity are going to school for two years at no cost to them this is when we need you to get out your phones and if you didn't see the 800 signs I put up everywhere we're going to do text to give tonight it's very very simple I took my husband's phone so thank you honey and I'm going to walk you through this it's very simple up on the screen that number 618-9528 all you need to do is go to that number and I'm going to do it right here with you I'm going to spend your money tonight hun hope you don't mind 9528 type in the text give hit send hopefully I got the number right nope I did the well I just sent a text to somebody else saying give so you might get an interesting response later hun I'm not sure I don't want you to give but 618-9528 take out your cell phones do it with me it's easy it's fun it will come up with the text how much would you like to give hun how much do you want to give while you are doing that ho ho guys you see the number oh my gosh it's coming we have a goal of a thousand however because of the passion that I have throughout talking about communities and this scholarship I was so touched when an anonymous donor said because of your generosity of helping others I'm going to give 75,000 to this scholarship fund 75,000 for the scholarship fund so but I have a challenge to do he said I need you to march 75,000 so I can't do this alone I need the support of all of you to be able to send few more students not only at SMCC but also to our main so we need to raise at least 10,000 tonight so I can go home and feel like 10,000 now I have a next goal of 65 but if you can give 50 to march that I will appreciate that so I want to say please have me reach this goal tonight so we can thank you so much thank you when you walk through the prompts and I'm just about there it's going to give you a link to take you to a website where you can pretty easily answer enter your card information and your gift will be automatically recorded up on the screen so this is open for 24 hours I invite you to continue to give why we do our next presentation after the next part of the program in order to see where we're at so at this point I would like to invite Clamont-Yambe to the stage he's going to introduce three current and former students just to give you a little bit of a background on some people who have really benefited from the services and the counseling provided by Prosperity Mane so can I get a round of applause for Clamont and keep giving good evening everyone we are very happy to have you all here tonight financial literacy is an essential survivor tool for American families especially as the tapestry of the US financial systems become increasingly complex for many low income families particularly newly arrived immigrant financial literacy can be a stepping stone out of poverty coming from a foreign country immigrant face immigrant face so many challenges to readjust or resettle in a new environment and face new realities financial access is knowing what once financial options are and having product and services to choose from the success of today's immigrant who come to the United States largely seeking to improve their own prospect for prosperity depend on their access to mainstream financial institutions that can help them save money buy homes access credit star businesses and otherwise build wealth to help immigrant begin their lives in the United States with greater financial promise CFL embarking this long journey to teach individuals and family gain knowledge about banks savings investments and so on every year we provide financial literacy classes to hundreds of individuals from all over the world and for today's event we have selected three of them to come and share their experiences with us it is my pleasure to introduce this year's panelists the first panelist Rehab moved to Maine in August 2016 from Iraq she has a bachelor degree in English literature Rehab worked as an English teacher with both middle and high school for more than 20 years in Iraq she currently works as a parent community specialist with Portland Public School and she is also an interpreter this is Rehab our second panelist is also from Iraq he is a senior at Portland High School and in few days he is graduating Mohammed Al-Amedi is an ambitious and hard-working young man and this is what interesting about Mohammed he has just opened a car garage and a used car dealership in Gorham, Maine so for the past two hours I was with Mohammed on the phone he was in New Hampshire I'm trying to tell him if you don't show up I'm going to get fired our third is Barricade Byru Barricade is originally from Eritrea where he was doing business building hotels and doing farming he holds a bachelor degree in applied mathematics and he uses his free time touring high schools college students at the Immigrant Welcoming Center Portland Library and SMCC Barricade so I will be asking them some questions and they will share some experiences with us tonight my first question goes to Mohammed Mohammed you are only 20 and I remember the first time I saw you in my class and if you didn't know Rehab is Mohammed's mother Rehab came to the first class and on the second class she was dragging Mohammed into the class so Mohammed did your mom force you to come to class no he did not she didn't Rehab why did you want Mohammed to learn about to have skills about financial literacy first of all I would like to say that because I get a lot of information from the CLF CLF classes how to manage money how to save money in fact they help us a lot in their classes so after that an idea came to my mind that I talked with my son Mohammed in fact he would like to start a business but he doesn't know how to start his business and at that time I would like to say that he just want to spend money whenever he got money he want to spend money he doesn't have the idea how to save money and therefore I invite him to this class and he get a lot of information from Clement and after that I noticed that he changed his ideas or he decided to start his business and in fact he start his business and now he start to he know how to manage his money he start to save money from his business and he has a lot of information thank you Mohammed I will come back to you Barakat you had a long experience being a businessman what do you think that the class you took from CFL was important to you basically when he just moved to a different place I came from Africa and I had no idea how the system of his work especially with the financial system so once I got the opportunity to take class in CFL I came to realize that I have to make money I have to save money and I have to know how to invest my money CFL is the best connector of new people coming who doesn't know the system with the community so it helped me to connect myself with the community so when we see CFL when they just present the lecture system I was really amazed because yesterday that I joined the class when I see for 01K I said what is this this is the address for a street or why did they bring for 01K so I just came to realize that there are so many benefits there are so many things so many bankers that I have to know different ways of saving and using my money so it's very nice connector for me great so the question goes to Mohammed what do you think that the class you took was very important to you well the class is very important because as you told me I was spending money I don't know how I just travel to New York to Boston every week, every month and then she told me about the class I was like no I don't want to go there and then I went and then I learned a lot of stuff and your mother told me a lot of things about you one of the things she said you've been teaching people your friends about these classes what have you been teaching them Mohammed I'm teaching them how to save money how to make money great and the next question is what is the most interesting and useful financial advice you have received from the class that you can teach to your children Riya I know you taught Mohammed but what else can you teach to your other children I learned a lot of information because in fact we are I can say we are ignorant about the financial in American system so we learned a lot about how to manage our money how to opening our bank accounts how to make the saving and checking accounts how to build our credits and it is good if we build our good credits rather than the bad credits and the most important thing that we need to decide our short terms goal short goal terms on the long terms the goals and how to decide these and how to build our budget in order to get these goals in order to achieve these goals so the same question to Barricade I would just say they have you have to save money when you are at early ages because when you save money it is helpful for your future so at the same time you have to save money for college for retirement and you also have to improve your skill you have to do the job that you love you also have to become efficient in quality person in your performance to do all this you need money so I would like to advise my kids that they have to save money they have to plan very well they have to see their short and long term plans and they have to be very effective in the community as well so that I can tell them great would you describe a situation when you had to make a financial decision and you thought about what you learned yes of course always our life is filled with a lot of decisions every day we have so many things coming in front of us and it becomes very difficult to choose which one will be the first one and when that one comes CFL is a very a very strong tool why because we are now learning how to budget our daily life we learned how to list our old short and long plans and we learned that we have to keep money for security because if you don't keep money aside somehow for your security when a problem comes your life is going to be affected so you have to organize yourself with what you are going to do based on what you have you should not be someone who is doing things by opportunity or by emotion but you have to look what kind of job you are looking how much is your income and then what is your short goal and then how are you going to decide for the things that are ahead of you you can tell the barricade was a very good student I think you can teach that class now Mohammed how did you make that decision of starting a business I know you just told us that every weekend you were going to Boston and New York to buy sneakers I guess when did you make that decision of starting saving money and start a business I make that decision after I took the class of course the CEFL I started to save money I started to make money I started my business after that class I learned a lot of stuff in that class and I wanted to get in the best life in the future we are going to ask that question to Ria is he really saving money yes he starts he starts to have a mother who is also a teacher so my last question goes to barricade what do you think CEFL class was important for yourself and for others in the immigrant community CEFL is very important for the community because if you are to discuss with a landlord or if you are to look for a job for a company you need to have a knowledge of financial knowledge I remember many of my friends who have gone for searching a job when they ask them that where they have to put their money, their salaries many of them they have taken their money in their pocket and they have come home but once you are conscious about the banking system about how to save money about which is a better job for you for yourself then you will have a better life so I learned from CEFL that I should become efficient person and a good person in the community that when you go to certain let's say companies because you have some background or understanding of banking system of your savings or your credit score it is very helpful that you are releasing some of the lot for the companies so I really want to thank all the panelists tonight for accepting to be here Mohammed I'm sorry for calling you probably 30 times today and I really it was a pleasure to have you in my class and we have this every day and that's our biggest reward when we help one person at a time they come back with a testimony like that it motivates us every day to wake up in the morning come to work and make a difference in the community I really want to thank you for coming tonight and let's give a round of applause to our panelists tonight I mentioned earlier it's one of the people who inspires me if you really want to be inspired make arrangements with Claude to go to one of his classes it's pretty amazing you've just heard from three student panelists we've also heard a little bit about three scholarship recipients I just want to remind you that every dollar we raise here tonight will be matched and it will go toward a scholarship fund for more students to give also please remember that that is open for 24 hours so you can continue to give and you can remind your friends to give and if you want to know what the number is just give Mara a call tomorrow and she will gladly tell you what that text to give number is with that the end of our program has come but before we let you go I'd like to invite Bill Brown who is the chair of our board and he's going to bring remarks thank you Helen would you mind if I tell you a few things that I've done for at least 10 years it's a long list I'm not a spring chicken well let's see I've been working at my job for about 30 years as some of you may know I'm employed by Barry Dunn a firm over on Middle Street here in Portland I've been a father for 24 years that's pretty good I've been married for 12 years that's awesome and I've been a director of community financial literacy for 10 years thank you and a director of prosperity main for about 15 minutes that's certainly not a comprehensive list but even if I were to torture you with the rest of it it really wouldn't be that long because the things on that list are really only the items that are the most important roles responsibilities and activities in my life so how did CFL now prosperity main come to make the short list of decade long activities in my life and you know to be honest it's because it's appealing as a volunteer activity there are a lot of higher reasons more altruistic reasons but in some ways it's a lot of work but it's easy to volunteer for CFL because it appeals to me it fulfills my need for immediate gratification believe it or not it speaks to economic needs and financial issues I'm an accountant I like things that speak to people's monetary needs and desires and it presents a challenge presents a challenge take my word for it how does this organization provide immediate gratification it's probably not what you usually get sold on when volunteering when donating a board or donating money we have a high impact our work makes a significant tangible and noticeable difference in the lives of our students and the participants in our programs and the community too the changes brought about through CFL's work are not subtle we get quick results the skills that are learned in our classes and the benefits obtained from our programs have an immediate effect the results that we achieve are not gradual and it's intuitively appealing practically anybody with a pulse can understand what we do and and why we do it too our mission is not arcane or academic we do address financial issues head on one of the absolutely first appealing aspects to me of CFL was that we promote financial responsibility fiscal responsibility it seems obvious but very important we help people to understand that spending less than you make is critical again you've heard that we encourage good stewardship of resources and proper prioritization of spending CFL as a program definitely does not enable financial behavior quite the opposite I'd say one thing that I think is very important is that CFL prosperity main now is itself a role model for fiscal responsibility we practice what we preach I can guarantee you that our executive director and our finance committee leading our board conservatively manage our cash flow, our budget funds Mr. Ganje watches every penny Mr. Eric Boucher is not one to have the wool pulled over his eyes every dollar that comes in to prosperity main is treated like the first and I do remember the first dollar we're here to ensure the sustainability of this organization and that drives our financial decision making prosperity main does not take our resources our gifts our funds or our blessings for granted our culture of gratitude and last in the financial arena is something that you might not expect of a financial literacy organization and that's that we have an abundance mentality so while we are concerned about the basics we're not just concerned about avoiding predatory lending practices or staying out of credit card debt we help our students and our proficements understand the difference between cost and value between investment and expenditure we hit a promote growth increase in real value and wealth accumulation that's why we are now prosperity main and not just community financial literacy prosperity main is not satisfied with just helping the members of our community to get by that's not enough we are about prosperity and lastly attractive the last attractive feature is challenge this is an interesting one because challenge has a few different meanings this organization and its mission challenges stereotypes stereotypes of immigrants refugees and asylees the skill sets their potential their motivations and their aspirations prosperity main doesn't accept the conventional wisdom about any of those things it challenges us as volunteers and board members this organization is all about optimizing its network which includes volunteers donors corporations the board everybody it demands a lot of us as volunteers and as board members and as members of the community as supporters prosperity main doesn't believe that capacity is finite lastly it challenges our imagination as we evolve and grow to meet the needs that we observe in the community and in the economy we don't just change for the sake of change we change to seize an opportunity where we can utilize our structure our resources and our brand to meet those needs prosperity main does not rely on the past successes of CFL which are many when the future demands change case in point the scholarship program you've heard the difference that that's making we live in a state with record low unemployment consequently a labor shortage we have a pool of young asylees who need an education in order to qualify for these jobs but they don't have access to traditional financial aid scholarship program has stepped in to meet that need you know about our matching program and if you haven't donated I would encourage you to do that this is a way to make an impact right now this is your first exposure to prosperity main I hope that you can envision supporting this organization for another 10 years if this is your 10th year supporting CFL and your first time supporting prosperity main I want to thank you to the next decade in any case whatever you do I hope that you will leave here inspired to support the goals of our immigrant families to obtain financial independence help build the economy of this state through developing our untapped workforce and join us in creating the business leaders of tomorrow who understand what it takes to start with a very little and build it to a very lot of prosperity I want to say thank you last of all to our donors our generous donors our generous corporate sponsors our tireless volunteers our dedicated staff our incredible board and of course to all of you guests this evening you made a great choice coming out tonight and we appreciate your support good night