NEW YORK, NY - A new lifestyle magazine for young adults created for credit unions is now being distributed to some 30,000 New York high school students through a cooperative initiative between the magazine's creators, brass|MEDIA Inc., New York Credit Unions, New York Credit Union Foundation, New York Business Teachers Association and New York State Education Department.

"Someone from the Business Teachers Association at the New York State Education Department go their hands on a copy through a credit union, called and asked for more copies, showed it to 10 teachers who loved it, and then sent an email out to a listserv of thousands of New York teachers," Bryan Sims, CEO of brass|MEDIA Inc., Corvallis, Ore., told the CU Journal. "All of the sudden, we had hundreds of teachers requesting copies for tens of thousands of high school student."

The magazine was first developed and offered to credit unions to co-brand and include their own ads as a way to connect with young members, Sims said.

For the schools, brass|MEDIA spent more than a year creating a specialized program targeted to the high school audience.

Its specific focus was to assist junior and senior high school students in their quest to understanding the importance of money and how it impacts their lives and how credit unions can be a part of their future by providing key financial service, Sims said.

Called the brass|STUDENT PROGRAM, it includes three elements:.

• brass|MAGAZINE, a special student edition of the magazine that shows young people how to make, manage and multiply money. Entertaining, informative and motivating, articles create relevant content for classroom discussions and activities.
• brass|TEACHER RESOURCE CENTER that provides online classroom materials that directly correlate with the content in brass|MAGAZINE. This interactive resource provides lesson plans, questioning strategies and suggestions for integrating other programs such as National Endowment for Financial Education High School Financial Planning Program and LifeSmarts, a classroom activity created by the New York Credit Union Foundation.
• Credit Unions for College offers a searchable database of credit union-supported scholarships.

This resource provides students with a convenient, one-stop search for scholarship opportunities in their geographic region.

Students can download scholarship information or jump directly to the sponsoring credit union's web sit for additional details.

"The program is a two-year pilot program cooperatively sponsored by New York credit unions to get resources to teachers while exposing high school students to the credit union message and supporting financial education," Sims said. "The program reaches 30,000 juniors and seniors in New York high schools, 10% of all juniors and seniors in New York."

Sims said that this effort represents one of the largest collaborations of credit unions reaching out to young adults.

The goal, he said, is to spread the concept throughout the country.