Former President Bill Clinton is scheduled to deliver a foreign policy address in Beverly Hills today, one day after advising several thousands of youth to learn how to take care of their money, and receiving an award for his support of jazz.
Clinton will deliver the inaugural address in the Los Angeles World Affairs Council’s new series, “America’s Role in the World” at a sold-out luncheon at The Beverly Hilton.
On Sunday, Clinton made the keynote speech at what organizers billed as the “World’s Largest Financial Literacy Education Event” at Galen Center.
“If you want to be powerful, if you want to live your dreams, if you want to get an education and make the most of it, you’ve got to know how to handle your money,” Clinton said.
“The most important thing you can do right now is to do your job, which is to learn as much as you can in school. But one of the things that all of our schools have not done a very good job at is teaching young people about money, about the value of money, about how to save it, how to spend it and how not to waste it.”
Clinton later called financial literacy “a very fancy term for saying spend it smart, don’t blow it, save what you can and know how the economy works,” according to NBC4.
Organizers expected more than 7,000 boys and girls ages 10 to 15 from at-risk communities to attend the event at the arena adjacent to USC. The attendance was more than 5,000, according to ABC7.
Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa also spoke at the event, which was presented by Banc of California.
“Having an understanding of basic financial concepts such as how to balance a checkbook can make a tangible difference in a young person’s ability to succeed,” said Villaraigosa, now a strategic adviser to Banc of California Chief Executive Officer Steven Sugarman.
“Financial literacy needs to be as fundamental as reading, writing and arithmetic.”
On Sunday night, Clinton received the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz’s Maria Fisher Founder’s Award at the All-Star Gala Concert tonight at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
The award honors an individual who has made major contributions to the perpetuation of jazz music and the expansion of jazz and music education in schools around the world.
The first “In Performance at the White House” event during Clinton’s presidency was an evening of jazz on the South Lawn that was televised by the Public Broadcasting Service. Clinton, who plays the saxophone, showcased jazz at the White House on numerous other occasions during his presidency and at the 1994 Summit of the Americas in Miami.
