Rhodes 5th grader financially, environmentally savvy
Helena Fisher is both financially savvy and environmentally aware, and it’s proven to be a winning combination for the Rhodes fifth-grader. She found out in a surprise school assembly on March 16 that she is the Rhode Island elementary school winner of the fall SIFMA Foundation’s InvestWrite Essay competition.
The SIFMA Foundation sponsors the Stock Market Game, and the InvestWrite essay contest is the game’s culminating activity, which asks the students to put into writing what they’ve learned in the game as they’ve explored the stock market and learned about stocks, bonds, mutual funds and the like.
The prompt for this year’s contest asked students to select a non-profit organization they support, and to outline a financial plan to sustain the financial future of the organization.
“I had to choose stocks to invest into to help my non-profit grow and become bigger and better,” said Fisher. “I chose my 4-H club as a non-profit. I started in it one and a half years ago and we do a wide variety of things. I like it better than Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts because it has both girls and boys in it.” Fisher began researching environmentally friendly stocks that would fit with the philosophies of the 4-H club, a club she started at school.
“I chose Tesla, GE, TD Bank and one mutual fund and one bond,” she said. “These were all green companies and they all wanted to help the environment and keep fossil fuel usage to a minimum. I looked on Google Finance to see how much they each had grown since becoming public. Tesla had the biggest increase and TD Bank had the smallest, but it was still a good amount of growth. For my bond, I started researching some and my dad suggested an Apple Green bond, so I researched that bond. I also had to pick a mutual fund, so I searched for an environmentally-friendly mutual fund and I found 15 or so, and I found one that seemed to be interesting and I chose that one.”
In her essay, Fisher was able to make the connection between the philosophies of the stocks and bond she had chosen, and her non-profit organization of choice. She also described herself and her involvement in the club.
At the school assembly, Fisher and her peers listened carefully to the description read aloud about the winner.
“It was me and one other girl who had submitted our essays,” she said. “Mrs. Armstrong listed the things that the winner liked to do, but they were things we both liked to do. She listed playing the violin, camping and bird watching, but when she said playing the orchestra bells, that’s when I knew it was me.”
Little did Fisher know, her family was hiding behind the stage curtains, waiting to surprise her. She is the middle of four siblings, with a younger brother in the third grade at Rhodes, and two older siblings, one in the eighth grade at Park View Middle School and one in the tenth grade at Cranston High School East. Her parents and younger brother were able to be present for the assembly.
As the winner, Fisher received a trophy for the school, balloons, a certificate and medal, a notebook, pen and highlighter, and a $100 cash gift card.
“I’ll probably invest some of that money into one share of something and put three-quarters of the remaining money into my college savings and then I will donate the rest to a charity,” she said. “I really don’t think I’ll spend much of it.”
Fisher and her teacher, Jim Gemma, were both honored at the event, and Gemma received a gift certificate as well. Gemma runs the Stock Market game in his class each year, and includes the InvestWrite essay contests in his fifth-grade curriculum as well. He has had InvestWrite winners in his class every year for about a decade.
According to Fisher, the spring session of the Stock Market game will be will be concluding soon, and the spring essay contest with a new prompt will soon be here. She plans on entering the essay contest again.
