Saint Nia Foundation, Inc.
The Saint Nia Foundation, Inc. (“Saint Nia”) is a Sacramento, California-based 501(c)(3) educational and philanthropic non-profit organization founded in 2001. Saint Nia is dedicated to empowering students through financial literacy, self-exploration, self-improvement, and enrichment. Saint Nia teaches financial literacy by request and via contract with collaborative community partners; provides an affordable, home-cooked meal option at the African Market Place; and implements charitable endeavors by providing meals and resources for the unhoused/homeless in the Sacramento region.
A saint is defined, in part, as one distinguished for piety, dutifulness, and virtue. Nia is a Swahili word meaning intention or purpose. The Saint Nia Foundation is dedicated to fostering the best in our students to help them reach their highest potential and live their life’s purpose through education, enrichment, and financial literacy.
About
One of Saint Nia’s key missions is for young people to be financially literate prior to graduating from high school. Saint Nia accomplishes this through providing workshops at local schools, churches, afterschool programs, and other organizations via contract, teaching the Federal Deposit Insurance Company’s (FDIC) Money Smart for Young People program to youth from age 12 to 20 years old. We also serve foster care youth up to the age of 26. We serve ages outside of this target range by request.
Money Smart is a comprehensive, standards-aligned curriculum that encompasses subjects such as English language arts, Mathematics, Social Studies, Economics, and Technology.
Saint Nia ‘s vision is to become the leading and number one pioneer in inspiring, training and mentoring financial literacy into mainstream high school curriculum throughout the nation.
For most of Saint Nia's history, we've focused almost exclusively on teaching financial literacy to young adults and their families. However, over the past 20 years that Saint Nia has served the Sacramento community and beyond, we've watched our homeless and food insecure population explode, especially during these past three years with the ongoing pandemic. There's no feasible way for individuals and families to budget their way out of extreme poverty, hunger, and homelessness.
Given the dire need, Saint Nia has shifted into philanthropic and mutual aid efforts to help provide food and resources to those who are unhoused and hungry. Continue to watch this space as we have many exciting, big goals to make a difference in the lives of those who need help the most.
Contact
Please contact us if you'd like for us to do a virtual presentation (via Zoom, webinar, live video, etc.) for your class, school, college/university, after school program, youth program, group home, church, etc.