Each year, NGPF Fellows have the option to award a Personal Finance Student of the Year Award' to a student who has demonstrated outstanding contributions in their personal finance class during the school year. We'll showcase new winners on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday here on the blog throughout the coming summer weeks. 

Students are selected based on the following criteria:

• Student has taken a personal finance class in the 2019-2020 school year that was taught by the NGPF Fellow who nominated them
• Student demonstrated outstanding performance in the class based on participation/academic excellence/passion for the subject matter

Congratulations this Thursday go to:

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Student: Lucy Surma

Teacher: Courtney Poquette

School: Winooski High School (Winooski, VT)

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“Knowing about money is extremely important. I'm grateful that I got to take personal finance as a sophomore because this is when I started making money for myself. I learned a lot of essential things about how to deal with money. I come from a more traditional family were talking about money is Taboo in our culture. Personal finance to meet many new things. I'm happy I took the class because I got to teach my mom about things she didn't know about. Everything she learned was about stocks and investing. While taking this class, I started doing new things to help me financially. The most important thing I did was opening up a savings account at a local credit union. This helps me save money because instead of cashing my checks and using all of the money I put it in my savings account and save it. I decided to take a personal finance class again so that I can help some of my peers. This class was very beneficial for me so I want to try and help others so they can also have a positive experience as well. Last year, there was a student who had a similar role I now have in the classroom and he helps me a lot. I want to do what he did and help everyone succeed.” 

-Lucy Surma

About the Author

Yanely Espinal

Born and raised by Dominican, immigrant parents in Brooklyn, Yanely is a proud product of NYC public schools. She graduated from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School in 2007 before going on to receive her bachelor's degree at Brown University in 2011. As a Teach For America corps member, Yanely taught third and fourth grade in Canarsie, Brooklyn. She received her master's degree from Relay Graduate School of Education in 2013. She spends her spare time making YouTube videos about personal finance on her channel, MissBeHelpful. Yanely also loves to dance, sew, paint, listen to podcasts, and babysit her 10 nieces and nephews!