Program’s Chair Hamid Ahmadi introduced our speaker for the day, Sohil Varshney. He said that Sohil is a remarkable young man of 17 who has been involved in the development of a groundbreaking youth organization.

Sohil said that he is just finishing high school (Oak Ridge H.S.) and about to go on to college. He has been accepted to U.C. Berkeley and University of Michigan while waiting for responses from other universities. Sohil said that he has been interested in finance since he was in middle school and at age 14, he liked learning about stocks and had his own portfolio. He noticed that others in his age group were not focused on the future, so he decided to help others become more prepared. Sohil notes that college debt is now over 1 trillion dollars and many young students live under the poverty line.

So, in 2018 he founded the FLY (Financial Literacy for You) organization. It is a 100% youth run organization and a 501(c)3 non-profit. FLY provides a youth to youth teaching environment which allows fun while learning in an interactive atmosphere.

The basic idea is to make youth understand that everyone

Needs to know how to manage their own money.

Sohil said that growing wealth is not done by paycheck but by management of money. 

In the curriculum, the students are taught about debt, credit card, payments, and the value of assets. One of the new financial instruments in banking system now is FinTech that anyone, anywhere in the world can open, manage his/her personal finances by a smartphone digitally. FLY organization will become more essential as young consumers have increasingly demanded easy digital access to their bank accounts, especially with banks without any physical branch locations, serving customers with checking, savings, payment services and loans on a completely mobile and digital infrastructure. Sohil said this phenomenon is similar to the arrival of credit card in the 50’s.

FLY has an impressive number of supporting partners – some are enumerated here:

Junior Achievement, Youth Outreach, Boys and Girls Club of Greater Sacramento, Consumes Oaks Wolfpack, Stanford Youth Solutions, Big Brothers and Sisters, Powerhouse Ministries, Sacramento Children’s Home, Hamden Hall Country Day School, A.T.& T (Black Rock), Wells Fargo Bank.

In the two years since the founding of FLY over 5000 individuals (teenagers) have been reached by the program – all over the world. They are now operating coast to coast and even internationally, have had multiple publications and been in radio talk shows, and have 50+ young instructors.

Sohil thanked Dr. Hamid Ahmadi not only for allowing him to speak to our Club about FLY, but also for the generous donation that he and his wife have made to their organization.

FLY’s website is: http://www.financialliteracyforyou.org

Acting President Greg Herrera complimented Sohil for his amazing abilities he has shown at such a young age in developing such a wonderful organization for youth. He promised that the Club will be discussing his organization in our Board Meetings – He also mentioned that a book will be donated, in his honor, to the Carmichael Library (Sacramento Public Library subsidiary).

Brochures and Pictures below…

1. Missy McCall, who talked about “Human Trafficking”, book donated in her name: Under the Birch Tree: A Memoir of Discovering Connections and Finding a Home by Nancy Chadwick.
2. Mark Urban, who talked about a trip to Ethiopia, book donated in his name: The Pharaoh’s Treasure: The Origin of Paper and the Rise of Western Civilization by John Gaudet.
3. Dr. Beverly Wesner-Hoen, who talked about being a part of Rotary Fellowship, book donated Why To Kill a Mockingbird Matters: What Harper Lee’s Book and Iconic American Film Mean to Us Today by Tom Santopietro
4. Doug Haaland, who talked about his trip to Israel, book donated in his name: Shaya: An Odyssey of Food, My Journey Back to Israel by Alon Shaya.
5. and 6. Bill Baxter and Rich Plath, who talked about “Fly Fishing” – get this – “On the Fly”: Hobo Literature and Songs 1879-1941 ed. By Iain Mcintyre. How appropriate….