Pawtucket native’s financial plan to save wild horses takes contest
8th-grader’s innovation wins national SIFMA competition
NEW YORK, N.Y. — Catherine Lisi pitched a $10,000 investment plan to fund her dream to advocate to protect wild horses, and now she’s being recognized as the best in Rhode Island.
Reflecting on Oprah Winfrey’s inspiring statement, “Whatever our dreams, ideas or projects, we plant a seed, nurture it and then reap the fruits of our labor,” Lisi pitched virtual investors for a capital investment to seed her dream to help protect these animals that may become extinct. Lisi’s financial plan was so compelling that it won her first place in Rhode Island in the Fall 2019 InvestWrite® competition.
From P /E ratios and Betas to fixed income and growth stocks, Lisi’s broad knowledge of investing enabled this impressive eighth-grader from St. Margaret School in Rumford to climb to the top of the competition in the middle school division and beat out thousands of students competing nationwide. InvestWrite is a national essay competition that bridges classroom learning in math, social studies, and language arts with the practical research and knowledge required for saving, investing and long-term planning. The competition serves as a culminating activity for participants in the SIFMA Foundation’s Stock Market Game program. Essays are judged by thousands of financial professionals who volunteer their time each year to ensure young people are exposed to the essentials of personal fmance early in life.
The National Retirement Risk Index shows that one in two working-age households are not prepared for retirement. SIFMA Foundation’s programs provide students like Catherine critical exposure to investing, capital markets and financial readiness. The Stock Market Game and InvestWrite help millions of students also strengthen their math, economics and long-term saving and investing know-how, follow financial news and stay apprised of current events. Students develop essential skills including teamwork, communication and leadership as they manage their online portfolios with their peers. They work in groups during The Stock Market Game and then write InvestWrite essays individually to apply what they have learned using critical thinking, analysis and creative writing. Since InvestWrite’s launch in 2004, 235,000 students have submitted essays.
“Financial responsibilities are a given in life, but financial education is not,” said Melanie Mortimer, President of the SIFMA Foundation. “That doesn’t add up for this country’s 57 million students like Edwin who are expected to compete in a global economy and manage their retirement. We must reduce barriers for teachers to bring financial education into the classroom and provide real-world educational experiences that prepare students for financial independence, economic mobility and the workforce.”
The Fall 2019 InvestWrite competition required students to write an essay describing a dream they hope to achieve. Essays laid out a financial plan to pay for their dream with a pitch to a panel of virtual investors. The students were expected to identify stocks, bonds or mutual funds that could be included in a portfolio to grow their investors’ seed money to fulfill their dream. Lisi described her dream and explained, “Saving wild mustangs is important to me because they’re a beautiful symbol of the American spirit. They were brought to America by the Spanish people. Some mustang herds escaped or were set free by settlers, ranchers, or Native Americans. They represent freedom, which our country stands for.”
To fund her dream, Lisi explained she would invest in several companies.
“One company that I would be interested in investing in would be TerraCycle. This is a recycling company that is trying to reduce the amount of waste that builds up in our landfills and oceans.”
She added, “two other companies that I would invest in are Allbirds which is located in San Francisco. Allbirds is a shoe company that uses different sustainable materials such as wool, eucalyptus fiber, recycled plastic and cardboard to make their shoes. The other company is called Mananalu Pure Water Company, which packages pure water in aluminum instead of plastic bottle containers, because aluminum is one of the most recyclable materials in the world.”
Winning InvestWrite essays are chosen through rigorous judging by thousands of teachers and industry professionals who evaluate students’ understanding of long-term investing, diversification, the global capital markets, and factors that drive investments as well as their expression of investment ideas in essay form. Winners receive exciting awards and prizes including laptops, classroom pizza parties, trophies, plaques and banners, and certificates. The first-place national winners in middle school and high school are awarded a three-day all-expense paid trip to New York City, the financial capital of the world, with their teacher and a parent.
An independent, double-blind, nationally randomized evaluation conducted by Learning Point Associates (now AIR) found that The Stock Market Game improves students’ academic achievement and personal financial behavior. Students who participated in the SIFMA Foundation’s Stock Market Game scored significantly higher on mathematics and financial literacy tests than their peers who did not participate. They also found that teachers who taught The Stock Market Game reported that the program motivated them to better plan for their own financial futures. The Stock Market Game has been named the only program that successfully increased scores on the Jumpstart Coalition’s test of high school students’ financial literacy.
Lisi and her teacher, Laura Doliber, were honored on Tuesday, Feb. 25, at St. Margaret School. Representatives of the SIFMA Foundation were present to recognize the winning student and teacher.