National Financial Literacy Challenge Draws 600,000 Students, 3,500 Judges and Vital Financial Education Spotlight

Financial education enthusiasts are saluting four precocious students who have been named first place winners of the national InvestWrite essay competition sponsored by SIMFA and McGraw Hill Financial. Hanah Brawley, Mac Bank, Olivia Dampier and Marcelo Bongalon won this notable distinction, which challenges students to evaluate an investment scenario and determine a portfolio allocation solution that achieves both short term and long term objectives. InvestWrite is the concluding event for the roughly 600,000 students nationwide who compete each year in the Stock Market Game program.

The national InvestWrite competition is marking its tenth anniversary and continues to put a very important spotlight on the importance of financial education, particularly for young people. Students in the fourth through twelfth grades may participate and, of the more than half a million youth who partake in the Stock Market Game program, about 20,000 students also engage in the writing competition. The four national winners are:

• Hannah Brawley, a senior at Vestavia Hills High School, Vestavia Hills, Alabama

• Mac Bank, a senior at Bloomfield Hills High School, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

• Olivia Dampier, a seventh grade student at Summit Ridge Middle School, Littleton, Colorado

• Marcelo Bongalon, a sixth grader at St. Cecilia School, San Francisco, California

The winners were selected through a highly demanding judging process conducted by thousands of educators and industry professionals. The competition has been acclaimed widely for the extent to which it has sparked broader awareness not only of the importance of financial literacy, but also as an example of how to effectively ignite interest among young people in financial education. More information about the InvestWrite competition can be found here.