By Evan Sparks
In 2017, Alaina Veliz was a rising high school senior in Miami-Dade County, Florida. As a student in the business program, she had an opportunity to graduate with a NAF certificate — but first she needed an internship.
Her school connected her to a program called Future Bankers and Financial Professionals Camp. The summer camp program involved two weeks of classroom learning about banking and finance, followed by a two-week internship placement at Mercantile Commerce Bank, one of many participating banks in South Florida.
“They gave us basic tips — even just how to dress professionally,” Veliz laughs. “I thought, ‘Is this really that important?’ It turns out that it is.” The experience taught her that banking “was about a lot more than I originally thought it was.” From teller operations and customer service to in-branch security, the bank also introduced Veliz and her peers to fields like HR, Bank Secrecy Act compliance and audit at the corporate headquarters.
At the end of the four-week camp, Veliz thought “that would be the end of it.” But two years later, as a college student, she got an email from Connie Laguna, president and CEO of the Center for Financial Training International, the organization at Miami Dade College that runs the summer camp program.
Laguna shared a job listing at Sunstate Bank, what is now a $465 million-asset community bank in Miami. The rest is history.
Big summer plans
“The camp was created because one of our local banks wanted a program that would be geared toward students and possible future employees that were from under-represented and low-to-moderate income areas,” Laguna says. The program partners with schools that offer NAF curricula focused on finance, each of which include a 150-hour internship requirement.
The camp lays the groundwork for the in-person internship with two weeks of educational programming. The program includes all requirements for the ABA Bank Teller Certificate, which gives each graduate a marketable credential with banks and a strong baseline knowledge. “We want them to get something at the end that they can use,” Laguna says.
But the curriculum goes beyond teller basics. First of all, the ABA certificate program incorporates “a lot of workforce soft skills.” The Center for Financial Training adds in financial literacy modules on credit, budgets, savings, identity theft and fraud. “They also hear from professionals in the industry,” Laguna adds.
“A lot of the bankers that we use are also bankers that have worked themselves up the ladder and have reached leadership roles.”
In the program’s first years, the education component was in-person as well. It went to a live virtual format during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it stayed that way as the camp program expanded to different cities. Virtual learning allows students from across all participating cities to join in as a single cohort. Today, the camp is offered in Miami; Camden, New Jersey; cities across Connecticut; and most recently Wilmington, Delaware.
The two in-bank weeks are what Laguna calls “internship-mentoring,” with lots of job shadowing and conversations. Campers receive a stipend for their participation, which reinforces the seriousness of the internship.
Each participating bank — ranging from local community banks to midsize and regional institutions — creates its own agenda for campers. (More than 95 percent of internship hosts are banks, although a few credit unions, real estate companies and law firms that serve financial businesses host as well.)
In Camden, participating banks created a rotation that allows campers to spend one or two days each in multiple institutions, Laguna says.
“The program has a different flavor in each community,” she adds; in Camden, they got Rowan University and Rutgers University at Camden involved to tap into their feeder programs.
Track record of success
In the past 18 years, about 3,000 campers have graduated. Across the country, more than 50 institutions are taking part in hosting interns.
While Laguna admits that it’s hard to track employment outcomes — high-school seniors move, and they haven’t usually set up their longterm professional email account yet — but students like Veliz remain engaged.
Veliz worked as a teller at Sunstate all through college. She describes it as an “amazing experience.” The work experience helped her with business school tests as well and made her an Excel whiz. She also had the opportunity support the bank’s customers through the Paycheck Protection Program and see the real-world impact of the bank.
After graduating in 2022, Veliz continued working for Sunstate, now promoted to financial analyst. Her goal is to continue growing with Sunstate. “They have helped shape my career and been super understanding,” she says. “I would love to continue growing in the banking sector.”
As for today’s campers, Sunstate has had them in all three of its branches. Veliz enjoys visiting to see the campers learning from the tellers. “It’s so empowering to see the youth,” she says. Laguna invited Veliz back one year to speak at the camp’s graduation. She notes that her experience as a former camper helped graduates “identify with me and my struggles. It’s OK to not know things and learn.”
Despite the challenges, Laguna stays in touch with many campers, and banks continue to tap graduates for open positions.
“We see future bankers now everywhere,” she says.
