Student wins $ 10,000 and a chat with a financial adviser
Facebook friends nominated 23- year- old aspiring social worker for the prize
Amanda Rose Schellenberg was looking for money to help pay for her university education. The 23- yearold wasn’t sure how she was going to get it, but one day she decided to write herself a “universe cheque” for $ 10,000, an idea she learned about from the book The Secret.
Two days later, she was on Facebook when she saw an advertisement for Pocketbook Rehab, a contest from the Credit Unions of B. C. that asks people to nominate friends for a $ 10,000 financial intervention and meeting with a financial adviser.
“You can write yourself a cheque and hope all you want, but if you want to get money you have to do something to get it — it’s not just going to come to you out of thin air,” Schellenberg said.
So she signed up and started using social media to ask her friends to nominate her and to vote for her.
“I don’t normally send out mass emails to all my friends on Facebook, but I just asked them to invest a vote in my dreams,” Schellenberg said. “I hope to give back one day with the money that I’ve won.”
A few months later, the thirdyear University of B. C. Okanagan student found out she won the $ 10,000 along with the meeting with the financial adviser. She’s studying to be a social worker, and has chalked up some student loan debt, despite working two jobs and modelling on the side. Tuition runs her about $ 5,000 each year, while textbooks eat up about $ 1,000. Her parents are able to provide her with a home and food, but she pays for the rest of her education herself.
“Amanda is a very smart and personable ... student who would like to take her love of social work and social issues and blend them with her interest in media,” the Credit Unions of B. C. said in an email. “She’s been modelling and acting and works two jobs — one as the companion to a young person with autism and the other as a camp counsellor for kids with behavioural issues.”
The contest was designed to get young people to understand that they can get financial advice from credit unions, and that they don’t have to have a lot of money to get started, said Alanna Dyani, manager of marketing at Central 1 Credit Union.
The Facebook contest gave entrants who collected the most support from their friends, an advantage in the random draw. This was designed to get young people spreading the word about their financial woes in order to collect nominations from their friends. For every five nominations, entrants would get one entry into the random draw.
“Amanda really took it upon herself to reach out and tell people what she would do,” Dyani said. “I think she really leveraged her personal networks in trying to garner those votes.”
The credit unions wanted to demystify the idea of going to a financial adviser, and to tell young people that it’s best to start having that type of discussion when you are young, Dyani said.
“You don’t have to win $ 10,000 to call up your credit union to talk about what you want to be doing at this stage of life or if you want to start up a business or a non- profit when you’re two years out of university, but you’re worried about student loan debt,” Dyani said.
“It’s about getting young people to understand that it’s okay to walk into a credit union to talk about your finances. You don’t need to have a lot of cash; you can be from any walk of life.”
Schellenberg met with an Interior Savings Credit Union financial adviser and has decided to start a tax- free savings account with some of the money and use the rest to pay for school so that she doesn’t have to take on more debt, Schellenberg said.
One day, she hopes to be a social worker and to start a nonprofit organization.
“It’s great to see somebody like Amanda walk away with this grand prize,” Dyani said. “She’s a great ambassador for her demographic and what they stand for. She’s obviously going to do some wonderful things and we couldn’t be any happier.”
Schellenberg says the money was really a blessing and made a big difference for her.
“I was also excited to get to go in and talk to somebody about it and to learn more,” Schellenberg said about the opportunity to sit down with a financial adviser. “I’m really interested in ethical funds, so I might look into investing in those.”
As part of her win, Schellenberg made a promotional video with the Credit Unions of B. C., which can be viewed at: http://youtube/rBy73VJMcew.