22 Jul 2014 Kelley leads Kids Life & Money 'ministry'

by Donna Lampkin Stephens
Mike Kemp photos

As a financial planner, John Kelley knows what disasters can befall when young people don’t have financial literacy, and he’s been doing something about it through his Kids Life & Money organization since 2004.

And now he’s branching out.

Since 2012, Kelley, 42, has added an after-school tutoring program through the non-profit KL&M College Preparatory Academy at 1270 Bruce St. in Conway.

“In our generation, you turn 18 and then you find out you’ve got to go get a bank account and start learning how to write a check and deal with money,” said Kelley, a finance graduate of the University of Central Arkansas. “Our idea started with teaching kids concepts about managing money before they actually have to use it, so by the time they graduate and go to college, they already have some concept of banking skills and investments, things you have to have in order to secure your long-term future.”

The financial literacy portion of the program features Kelley as a speaker for schools, colleges and other organizations. He has been a mainstay in Career Orientation classes, for example, at Carl Stuart Middle School.

“I grew up in Cotton Plant, where naturally the people there didn’t understand anything about handling money,” Kelley said of his hometown in the Mississippi River Delta. “There are a lot of disadvantages. People who understood would take advantage of those they knew didn’t understand it. I grew up understanding the disadvantage of not understanding (finances) and the long-term consequences of not understanding.”

For the last two years, the CEO of Financial Legacy Management has added the tutoring program for college-bound youth in grades 5-7.

“What we’ve found is by the time a kid gets to eighth grade, they have habits,” Kelley said. “They’ve either decided, ‘I’m going to be academically fine,’ or ‘I’m going to be cool.’ If we can develop the fifth- through seventh-graders now to understand the concept and grow with us, then we can work with them as they get older.”

The idea stemmed from his experiences with his wife, Valerie, as they worked with their daughter, Jayla, now 15 and a sophomore in high school.

“We spent a lot of time with her on math and other subjects in fourth, fifth, sixth grade, and you wonder, ‘How are the everyday working parents who don’t understand math, who don’t understand what these kids are doing — what kind of help are they getting?” Kelley said. “We put in this tutoring piece to create affordable tutoring for parents of college-bound students. We can teach them the concepts of study skills. We use productive college students as mentors, so they build relationships directly with actual college students.”

The program runs 3-6 p.m. weekdays after school during the school year with a meal provided each day. After-school transportation is available.

Staff includes a program director, two academic facilitators and interns from UCA and Hendrix College.

Forty youth, mostly from Conway, were enrolled in the spring semester. Students may re-enroll every semester during the targeted grades.

Some have been involved for the full two years of the program.

Carla O’Neal of Conway has had two daughters, Diamond and Makayla Lewis, participating for a couple of years. A third, Janiya O’Neal, will start this fall, and a fourth, Jasmine O’Neal, can’t wait until she’s old enough next year.

Carla O’Neal can’t say enough good things about the program.

“My daughter (Diamond Lewis, a rising seventh-grader) was having trouble with math, and now she excels,” O’Neal said. “Her grade is not below a B, and she’s had up to a 96. I also like that the program gives some focus to thinking about college and teaches them about finance. It’s all-around to get them ready for life after high school.

“I tell you, it’s been a blessing for my kids.”

One daughter is in special education classes, and the KL&M program coordinates her instruction with the public schools.

“It’s not like she’s sitting around doing nothing or coloring,” O’Neal said. “The workers (in the program) are focused on helping the kids. From what I’ve seen with my own children, it really does help, and it’s good for them to have good role models in those college students.

“Your kid, if they take the opportunity, actually can learn there.”

Tuition is $800 per semester, which averages to $45 per week, Kelley said.

“We’ve had some sponsors in the past, and we’ve had conversations with potential sponsors,” he said. “That’s something we’re always looking for for students who can’t afford the tuition. My company donates to the program.”

The program includes study skills and financial literacy in addition to actual tutoring. Field trips and guest speakers to expose the students to different corporations and experiences are also included.

“We’ll take them on college visits to UCA and Hendrix to give them an actual look and feel of a college campus,” Kelley said, adding that longer-range goals include trips to farther campuses.

Another goal would be a trip to Dallas to combine a visit to, say, SMU, in addition to an excursion to Six Flags.

He reports “great academic progress.”

“We have a goal of helping every kid in the program to maintain 80 percent or better in all classes,” Kelley said. “One of our students who has been there from Day 1 came in with a C average in both literacy and math, and now that student is maintaining a B in both.

“There is progress being made, a ton of progress. That’s the whole program. If we’re not making progress, I’ll stop. I don’t have any other purpose. I don’t have an interest in having a child-care facility.”

Registration for the fall semester is ongoing now at kidslifemoney.org or by e-mailing [email protected] or calling 501.450.7384.

Kelley, who has been in Conway since arriving at UCA in 1990, likened the program to a ministry.

“That’s exactly what it is,” he said. “The question is, ‘How do we get the awareness out there so that people will pick up on it and take advantage of it?’ That’s something we’ll have to wait and see.”