Teach kids to save: banks can help turn children into financially responsible adults and also cultivate them as future consumers of financial services. Here are four profiles of banks that participated successfully in last year's "Teach Children to Save" initiative.

• Author: Albro, Walt

MORE THAN A YEAR AGO, Leighann King, the trainer at Sugar River Bank (assets: $253 million), Newport, N.H., was approached by the head of the children's section at the local public library. Would Sugar River be willing to teach banking to the after-school class of preteens, the librarian asked. "My first thought was fear," says King. "Did I really want to sit in a room with 12 pre-teens and talk about banking?"

Her concerns turned out to be unjustified. She was able to find a young teller who was thrilled with the idea of helping her plan and teach the program. The two bankers made a total of three presentations to students, teaching them how to write a check, to balance a checking account and to plan and save in order to reach a financial goal.

The program was so successful that King this year expanded it to all five of the bank's locations using resource materials from ABA's "Teach Children to Save" offering. "They learned a few things that will stay with them as they grow, and I know I learned a few things also; it was a win-win situation," King says.

Although the bank's initial "Teach Children to Save" effort was modest, it was typical in that the new program was received well enough that the bank immediately decided to expand it.

Sugar River was one of four banks participating in the 2010 "Teach Children to Save" program that received a prize from the ABA Education Foundation for their efforts. Sugar River Bank was selected at random from among the year's new participating banks. The bank received a $1,000 donation that could be presented to a deserving group of the bank's choice.

The other three banks are veterans of the program and were recognized for the large number of participants reached. The each received $1,000 donations as well.

The 2010 "Teach Children to Save Contest" was designed to build off of the momentum of the 2009 program, which reached 1 million students nationally for the first time. For the competition, all registered ABA members banks were divided into three asset categories and judged accordingly. The categories were: less than $100 million, $100 million to $250 million, and more than $250 million. The overall winner was Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico, which reached more than 100,000 participants--more than any other bank in the nation.

ABA Bank Marketing magazine asked program coordinators at each of the winning banks to describe what efforts are required for a successful program and what...