The year was 1995. A young man was in his highschool years at Harrison Highschool. He was a star asset to the Panther track team and was looking forward to qualifying for the state meet at the regional competition at the end of the season. Shortly after mid season, his father came home from work and was pissed! He called his son into his room and scolded him. It turns out that his 16 year old son had somehow got a JC Pennys credit card in his name and had an outstanding balance on it. When asked what was purchased on the card, the son replied "I bought Christmas gifts for the family. I was planning to pay it back as soon as the season was over." His pops had other plans. His pops informed the young man that he could no longer participate on the track team and that he had to work more hours at Burger King to pay his debt. The young man didn't understand the drastic punishment back then but he fully understands now. The young man was named J. Wiggins.
Fast forward to 2009 and it all makes sense. My father was trying to teach me financial responsibility. I didn't understand credit and how it can destroy your adult life. I didn't understand that credit was just a temporary loan. How was I to know? I was a simple minded 16 year old boy that lived life 800 meters at a time. (Figure that one out... lol) If Project Impact was around back around that time, who knows what I could have learned about financial responsibility.
The Project Impact financial seminar was held at Oklahoma Christian University. The OCU School of Education is very helpful to Project Impact because they provide many campus tours to the students as well as donated lap tops, tutoring tools, and classroom space to hold meetings. Project Impact provided a very special surprise guest for the kids. Former OU football standout DJ Wolfe blessed the audience with his real life stories of his personal finances and his football career. His presentation was EXTREMELY informative and I was actually impressed with his knowledge and information. I mean FOR REAL IMPRESSED. The DJ that spoke to the crowd wasn't the DJ I knew from college. DJ spoke to the audience of teenagers as a seasoned veteran. He shared with them stories of his frivolous spending and carefree attitude. He admitted to his mistakes and enlightened the kids about the power of being wealthy and not rich. Mr. Wolfe enlightened them on the power of good credit and saving money. The students needed to hear that. He even went as far as to break down how one million dollars isn't as much as you may think it is. Very interesting to say the least. After his presentation, a representative from Bank of America hosted a drawing for a FREE CHECKING ACCOUNT! That isn't even the good part... the good part is that the winners also won money for their FIRST DEPOSIT! Imagine how a young person would feel to have the chance to have a free checking account in their name AND already have $100 in the account? They can thank the promotion group 9 Entertainment for the money. They donated all of the financial prizes to the children... and you thought 9ENT only hosted parties. HA! They help out the community as well.
The event was definitely a blessing to attend and I look forward to be able to shoot more events like this that really matter. Terrence Bell of Project Impact is currently looking for VOLUNTEERS and GRANT WRITERS! If you are interested or if you know of any grant writers, please do not hesitate to visit
projectimpactokc.orgBy the way, I eventually paid off that JC Pennys card and was able to compete in our state trackmeet where I placed 5th in the open 800m, 6th in the 4x800m relay, and, first in the 4x400m with the fastest spilt. As a whole our team earned second place behind Mullen. (Colorado cats KNOW that competing against those cats just isn't fare. If you want to hear the story just let me know...)
-J. Wiggins
2 comments:
This is dope Wigg, good to see my main man DJ doing the positive for the kids (L-Town stand up!) and the project seemed super positive.
Oh, and glad you paid off that damn JcPenney's card. Those collector calls are the worst...
-Ed.
This is good stuff. This is actually something that I've wanted to do as a part of Leadership Development. Our spending and (lack of savings) habits form early and tend to hamper us for a long time. We gotta start early.
Good job
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