Photo by Reagan Snyder

Volunteers on a Mission to Improve Financial Literacy 

April is Volunteer Appreciation month, and LA Family Housing (LAFH) is celebrating and appreciating the thousands of volunteers who help make our work possible each and every day. Volunteers like Yanira Giron and Mark Chandler, who have decades of experience between the two of them, and have spent the last few years providing financial literacy and education to low-income families and individuals across Los Angeles through Bank of America (BoA). “I found my purpose through Bank of America in volunteering. And I found my volunteering purpose in LA Family Housing, which is to serve the unhoused community,” says Yanira. “That to me is what a perfect match is. I feel whole when I am here, when I do this.” 

Yanira Giron never forgets a face. As people trickle in for her financial literacy session at LA Family Housing's newest permanent supportive housing site, The Cielo, she catches up with people she remembers teaching over the years who are now permanently housed. She makes a point at the beginning of her class to have people introduce themselves and feel comfortable. "What I love and what I'm passionate about is empowering our communities through financial education,” she says. She is your friendly, neighborhood financial advisor.  

Yanira is passionate about improving financial literacy, having become aware of the lack of financial knowledge earlier in her career. “Growing up, most people don't understand or realize the power of credit, for example. People easily get into debt because they don't know, and it's difficult for them to manage, and when you are so overwhelmed with debt, some people think about bankruptcy. But that's not the only way out. And so we provide those tools, we provide them with knowledge.” 

Nineteen years as an operations analyst with BoA put Yanira in a unique position to offer specialized services to LAFH residents. She had already been a volunteer at LAFH for a year prior, assisting with game nights, serving Thanksgiving dinners, and helping with in-kind donation drives. But in 2013, a new opportunity arose that felt like a perfect fit. BoA launched its Better Money Habits program, designed to provide free financial education resources to the community, in addition to sending employee volunteers to provide in-person education sessions to low-income families and individuals. In fact, the first Better Money Habits education session, delivered in Los Angeles, was held at LAFH. Yanira knew she wanted to be involved, and the rest is history. 

One of the unique perks about working at BoA is the volunteer opportunities offered not only to current employees, but also to retirees, which is how Yanira got partnered with Mark. 

After a 20-year career at BoA, Mark Chandler’s desire to give back to the community was personal. “Years ago, my niece was taken away from my sister and put into foster care, and I realized that my niece did not have the same opportunity to learn about everything, including finances, until we got custody of her and she came to live with us,” he shares. “I realized I had imparted all this knowledge on my kids about managing money and budgeting, but my niece didn't have that same opportunity. That's when I realized that there's a gap out there.” 

In California, schools are working to fix this educational gap. A Personal Finance Curriculum has been approved by the State Board of Education (SBE), and beginning in 2028, it will be a high school graduation requirement. But Mark worries about the people who didn't get that opportunity at a young age. “As I've done more courses with adults, the gap is still there,” he says. “It gets accentuated or exaggerated as time goes on because there are so many more areas of financial literacy that have been missed. But it’s important to me that people know it's not too late. There's still always something that people can learn and be able to execute.”