Budgeting workshop w/ Henry Santanna's youth office

In partnership with the Office of Boston City Councilor At-Large Henry Santana, Fortune Avenue recently had the opportunity to deliver a customized budgeting workshop for a cohort of high school interns working in City Hall. Many of these students were navigating their first jobs—and their first paychecks—making this workshop especially timely and relevant.

The session began with a quick icebreaker, followed by a mini-lesson introducing core budgeting concepts. From there, students participated in an interactive activity where they were assigned real-life City Hall job roles and asked to build budgets based on their salaries. They then rotated through four lifestyle stations, making choices about housing, transportation, food, and entertainment—all while staying within their means.

We design every community workshop to meet the needs and interests of the young people we’re serving. In this case, that meant grounding our budgeting activity in the actual career landscape of Boston city government.

We’re deeply grateful to Councilor Santana and his team for trusting a youth-led nonprofit to lead this session. Their support gave us the chance to engage a driven, thoughtful group of students—and even share a few laughs along the way. (Shoutout to 14-year-old TJ for the most iconic icebreaker answer: “I’d buy two Hellcats.”)

If your organization is interested in hosting a Fortune Avenue workshop, reach out here. All of our sessions are free, hands-on, and built with students in mind.