In a world which offers endless ways to spend your dollar, three members of Oxford High School’s DECA program are hoping to make Oxford students a little more financially-savvy.

Carlee Thompson, Alexis Jahlas and Isabella Igram, all OHS seniors, have been teaching fellow Oxford students financial literacy throughout the school year, as part of their DECA service project.

The DECA program is a global student organization that prepares students to be leaders and entrepreneurs in the fields of marketing and finance, hospitality, and management.

“We chose financial literacy (for our project) because we felt like there’s a lack of the concept in the curriculum at school,” said Thompson. “We thought it was important to teach elementary, middle school and high school students the importance of it so when they go off (to) college, or even during high school, they’ll be able to stand on their own and have a stable financial life.”

According to Thompson, her group is looking to arm fellow students with the ability to understand how money works in the world: how it is earned, managed and invested.

To do this, she and her team have organized finance-focused activities for elementary, middle, and high school students throughout the district since the start of the school year.

At the elementary level, one fifth-grade class at Oxford Elementary School participated in a number of fun lessons created by the OHS seniors to pique their interest in money management.

Several weeks later, the girls turned their attention towards Oxford Middle School, inviting a group of seventh-graders to use an app the team created, called DECA Finance, to learn the value of a dollar. The app included a Quick Response (QR) code scanner.

Using the scanner, participating students scanned QR codes which had been placed around the school.

Each code provided the students with a hypothetical scenerio which prompted students to decide if the item or situation was worth spending their money on. All purchases, bonuses and deductions were recorded and used to calculate their remaining balance at the end of the activity.

On Dec. 2, Thompson, Jahlas and Igram also organized a trip for Oxford High students to attend Quicken Loans Junior Achievement Finance Park in Detroit, a hands-on learning center in Detroit which allows students to learn how to manage their finances and explains to them how their decisions today will impact their financial futures.

Forty-five students from OHS attended.

Thompson, Jahlas and Igram say they will continue to work with Oxford students to promote financial literacy throughout the remainder of the school year.

“We’re just hoping that (other students) will understand that finance is not as easy as it might seem and it’s not just about money… We’re hoping that they realize that it’s very important to take care of your money and make good decisions, instead of spending it on things you don’t need,” said Thompson.