Timpanogos FBLA

Each issue, Utah Valley Magazine features a UCCU partner or member. This time we hear from Tiffany Peterson, a member of the Timpanogos (High School) Future Business Leaders of America.

  What are the benefits of belonging to the Future Business Leaders of America? Being part of Future Business Leaders of America gives a sense of success. You are contributing to something bigger than yourself, giving service to the community and bettering yourself for your own personal financial decisions. You make friends and are also given opportunities to make a difference in all age levels in the community. Also, it looks good on a job application and college resume!

  How long has your organization been associated with UCCU? Three years. As partners, we have been building up the BeMoneySmart program with three age group components: an elementary school presentation, high school lunch-time seminars and the community night.
  What skills did you develop during your time in the club? To make this project a success, we had to have the help from every member in our chapter. In total we had 24 members give service. Everyone who was involved spent hours planning, organizing and implementing the Timpanogos FBLA partnership with business project. I personally feel that I improved my leadership skills. In order to succeed, I had to learn how to create business partnerships, to delegate, to maintain an organized schedule, and how to be a better teacher for our student presentations.

  How has UCCU helped your team? Without the partnership from UCCU, our nationally ranked projects could not exist. Each partner has to complete certain components to keep the program running. UCCU helped with the development of the PowerPoint presentation we use, with financial aspects of the project and with training and support to our chapter members.

  Tell me about your experience at nationals. The FBLA national competition was a life-changing experience! Besides having the opportunity to fly across the country to Nashville, Tenn., we were able to compete against 7,500 other FBLA members from all across the country. We met students from New York to Puerto Rico. We heard what other clubs across the country are doing in their communities, and it gave us ideas to bring back home and make our program even better.

  How did you get the idea to teach money management skills to elementary students? We set annual chapter and national goals. We wanted to give our service in an area that we felt would have the most impact for our community. We immediately implemented the elementary component. After our first year, we received enormous amounts of positive feedback from our students’ teachers. We knew we started in the right place and have been building up the program by taking in more students and teaching more age levels ever since.

  What feedback have you received from the elementary children? The students are quite excited when we are able to come into the classroom. We feel that we make a connection with the kids because we are different than the everyday teachers in the classroom, and it is always a wonderful experience.

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