CLEVELAND — Alicia Fitzgerald is a certified financial coach and owner of Totem Financial Wellness.
Another title she recently took on is content creator, a path that the coronavirus pandemic led her down.
“It changed everything to where I have to be adaptive and I have to learn to do it. So I got my microphone and my setup and I just started posting on Youtube,” the certified financial coach said.
Some content creators focus on makeup tutorials, clothing hauls or fitness routines but Fitzgerald’s videos and blog posts focus on finances and financial literacy.
“My mom pushed financial literacy really hard. So she was a single mom, four daughters,” Fitzgerald said.
She said it wasn’t long into her banking career that she realized that financial literacy was lacking in many northeast Ohio communities.
“You don’t learn that in schools, but especially in minority schools, you don’t learn that in urban communities. There’s a huge education gap between people who live in the inner city Akron and Cleveland, versus people who live in predominantly white counties.”
Now, as the owner of Totem Financial Wellness, she’s using the internet to connect with those communities in need, which are even harder to reach because of challenges brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
Recording and posting free weekly videos and posting informational blogs on topics such as budgeting, creating financial boundaries, credit, and mortgages have become Fitzgerald’s way of giving back to those trying to get back on their feet after a very challenging year.
It gets depressing, seeing everything go so wrong for people, knowing you can help them, and they’re just out of reach because all of the resources and places they would go are closed,” she said.
For more information on the free resources Alicia Fitzgerald provides, click here to visit Totem Financial Wellness.
