Andrea Hawkins

Opinions Editor

Although the turnout was much smaller than anticipated, spirits were high as speakers, dancers, actors, and sports legends came together in the name of financial literacy at Money XLive on April 17 at Stocker Stadium. People of all ages came Saturday to learn about how to combat bad financial decisions. 

Most of the presentation from Vince Shorb, the founder of Money XLive and Willmar Valderama, actor from “That 70’s Show,”focused on starting young and making good financial decisions early in life. 

“My best friend Chad put this program together, and I really admired it and now it is a reality and I get to go on tour. For me it’s really about improving the lives of children,” Valderama said. He declared that he had retired the character, but after a lot of cheering, he said a line or two in Fez’s character. It was unintelligible, but who could really understand Fez for the most part anyhow? 

“Find early on in life what you love to do and then convince someone to pay you for it,” Valderama said, quoting the late DJ AM his best friend who died last year. He gave encouraging advice to the crowd saying that we all have the same opportunity in life and anything that happened in your past shouldn’t affect your future. 

After Valderama left the stage, MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew Season 5 finalists Break Effects danced. 

There was a short game show depicting how to diversify your investments, and there were also a short skit on how credit affects purchasing items.  

The advice was simple, yet impactful in the manner of execution. Money Xlive, wasn’t a huge success in terms of turn out, and the ticket prices might have been a contributing factor, but many of the people who came will not soon forget the lessons that it taught.