A huge congratulations to one of our amazing Alumnas Blanca Medina for recently facilitating WANDA’s new Financial Literacy class focused on budgeting.
We are thrilled to announce that she will be the lead facilitator for our next partnership cohort with MidPen Housing Corp, scheduled for fall 2023. Blanca will be WANDA’s first facilitator to offer our full curriculum in Spanish.
My name is Blanca Medina and I am an alumna of the WANDA program. My background is in social services, and I have over 10 years of experience. I have always enjoyed working with women and have been doing so for over a decade. In addition to my work in social services, I am also a financial coach and have been for over a decade.
Participation in the WANDA program has had a positive impact on me. The program encouraged me to save on a monthly basis, and I have been able to build a habit of saving ever since. I still maintain my high yield savings account, and saving is now a non-negotiable for me. I used the money I received through the WANDA program to open a taxable brokerage account for my two children with the purpose of teaching them how to invest.
In 2020, I became a homeowner, and in 2021, my partner and I started our own moving company. My career has certainly shifted as I am now working independently. I am pursuing one of my goals which is to have a family business while also keeping in touch with other alumnae and women I met through my career, and continuing to offer financial coaching and curriculum advising to different organizations like WANDA and, most recently, Financial Capability Investments. Both roles allow me to stay connected with my community while sharing my skills and expertise with women.
My desire to become a financial coach started when I helped several homeowners modify their home loans and save their homes from foreclosure back in 2010. This gave me the opportunity to not only assist them with the loan modification process, but also to teach them how to create financial goals and develop better financial habits. The positive changes I saw in these individuals were incredibly rewarding and solidified my desire to continue to learn and grow in my financial coaching skills.
In addition to helping homeowners, I also provided financial education to low-income women who were monolingual and had limited knowledge about banking institutions. It was fulfilling to see these women improve their credit and gain access to the financial mainstream in this country. This experience further strengthened my belief in the importance of financial literacy and the positive impact that it can have on people’s lives.