Severna Park DECA students Taylor Berger, Annie Myers, and Charlotte Sundel placed second with their Financial Literacy Promotion Project at DECA’s International Career Development Conference, becoming the first Maryland contingent in more than a decade to receive the honor.
DECA is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) education association with the mission to prepare emerging leaders and entrepreneurs in marketing, finance, hospitality, and management in high schools and colleges around the globe. More than 60 Maryland students and advisors attended the DECA International Career Development Conference. The conference brought together more than 20,000 students and advisors from throughout the United States, and other countries including Canada, China, Korea, and Mexico. The attendees participated in leadership workshops, campaign rallies, regional meetings, and competitive events.
Berger, Myers, and Sundel – all juniors at Severna Park – developed a website designed to help teenagers learn about and manage their financial futures and launched a social media campaign to increase exposure and visits to the site. After taking first place at the Maryland Career Development Conference, the students continued to develop their project. They wrote financial literacy advisory lessons that were distributed to all AACPS high schools, had their website implemented in a high school Signature curriculum, and reached out beyond Anne Arundel County to see how they could help students in the rest of Maryland make smart financial decisions.