Contact: Linda Sherry, Consumer Action, (202) 544-3088; Diana Don, Capital One, (703) 720-2371

Consumer Action and Capital One will hold a free MoneyWi$e financial training seminar for community groups in the New York metropolitan area on March 28 in Newark, NJ. Fnancial educators from Consumer Action will conduct workshops designed to teach representatives from nonprofit agencies how to improve financial literacy at the community level. The meeting will focus on the core areas of financial management including: basic banking and money management; understanding and rebuilding credit; bankruptcy; and financial education. Close to 90 community representatives have signed up to attend the event. “Consumer Action has been proud to work in partnership with Capital One over the last six years to provide leaders of local nonprofit organizations with the teaching tools they need to bring financial literacy programs to their local communities,” said Mikael Wagner of Consumer Action. “We applaud the work these groups do to help educate and empower their neighbors.” “The MoneyWi$e program provides consumers at all income levels with the information and practical assistance they need to better understand and manage their finances,” said Diana Don, spokesperson for Capital One. “We are proud to continue to co-sponsor this important financial literacy initiative. We believe that this training seminar, combined with our free brochures on budgeting, saving to build wealth and managing credit, will jump start the efforts of local community organizations that are educating consumers.”

MoneyWi$e: Materials, Training and Seminars

Consumer Action and Capital One first launched the MoneyWi$e partnership in November 2001. Since then, the program has produced and distributed a series of MoneyWi$e educational materials to provide consumers with the building blocks for developing and honing personal finance skills, from saving and budgeting to balancing a checkbook, to understanding the basics of credit and credit repair and how parents can talk to teenagers about money. By providing free brochures in multiple languages (English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese), the MoneyWi$e program is able to address financial literacy across both income and ethnic barriers. More than one million brochures have been distributed to date. # # #