One Life with Two Financial Mentors

AIMCo Foundation Funding Makes a Huge Impact on so Many in the Communities We Serve

Theresa B. is just one individual who has benefited from our funding — reading her story highlights the impact of the AIMCo Foundation.

Bissell Centre, through financial support provided by the Foundation, provides a free program on financial literacy to individuals living in the inner city of Edmonton. Covering topics ranging from debt and credit, to budgeting and knowing your financial rights, Bissell Centre gives participants the confidence they need to manage their money. Not only does the AIMCo Foundation help fund the program; it also helps fund the training required to deliver it.

Theresa fondly remembers her father as her first financial mentor. Thanks, in part, to his advice, Theresa has never been homeless.

“Do good things with your money and don’t cry away your blues by drinking and drug use,” she recalls her Dad saying. However, after his passing, she had nobody to advise her on her money management and didn’t know who to ask for guidance. Living on her own, she found work at a daycare, a career she held for 22 years. She tried to save her money but lacked basic financial literacy. Now at 48 years of age, Theresa is on Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH), where she needs to survive on a fixed income where every dollar counts.

Fortunately, Theresa took advantage of Bissell Centre’s Financial Empowerment program and for the first time in her life, Theresa says she feels like “an independent woman”.

“Paying for my roof comes first, and then I have extra money to pamper myself with a purse from Ardene’s. It’s a good life,” she says.

Funding from the AIMCo Foundation for Financial Education helps to make programs like Bissell Centre’s Financial Empowerment Program possible, such important work that is making an impact on so many people’s financial security.