February 28, 2022 • 10 mins
Nitiya talks about her journey of finding scholarships to pay for college and how people should see college as an educational decision and a financial decision. Additionally, she felt that she needs to share this knowledge to prevent black & brown women from accumulating college debt.
Host IG: @itstanyatime
Guest IG: @nitiyawalker
Guest Website: Seeds of Fortune
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. Hey Money Movers, Welcome
to the Money Moves podcast powered by Greenwood. Our guest
(00:22):
today is the executive director and founder of the Siece
of Fortune eighth. This nonprofit focuses on helping teenage women
of color to navigate the college scholarship and application process
while simultaneously educating them in career in financial management skills.
To date, she has helped college applicants earn more than
fifteen million dollars in scholarships and grants. She has been
(00:47):
honored as one of the Forbes thirty Under thirty leaders
and has been featured in Brack Enterprise and The Huffington's
Post Money Movers. Let's welcome the inspiring and young entrepreneur
Nataia Walker to the podcast. Hi to Tia, Hello, are
so happy to be here today. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, We
(01:07):
are so happy to have you here and to tire,
you are really out there making a difference in the
lives of so many people. Fifteen million dollars is huge
and a monumental win and I know a lot of
people felt the effects of that. Yes, indeed, we are
so excited to be able to have reached so many
(01:28):
young women of color last year, especially during the pandemic
when it seems like the whole world has shut down,
but then also the school shut down their doors to students,
making it difficult for them to be able to access
these types of resources and information to make informed decisions
about their college process. Oh absolutely, I mean, just you know,
(01:49):
as we pause and look back after having gone through
this global pandemic, being shut down and how hard that
was on so many students. You know, they had to
go back home to try and learn learn through zooms.
You're right like it. It's the ramifications of that and
being cut off from access to education counselors on campus
must have been huge. So you really created quite the solution. Indeed,
(02:12):
I want to take us back a little bit because
you're a young entrepreneur, but talk a little bit about
where this passion arose from where you know, what was
it that was so important to you to help and
reach back and help young women of color while they're
still in high school be able to go and achieve
these scholarships and grants. I am so glad you asked that,
because it really is a story about my community. When
(02:35):
I was a high school junior, I had been part
of eight I was like a non nonprofit hybrid that
my church had started called Teams that I mean business,
and they partnered with the Myrtle Avenue bid in Brooklyn,
New York, That's where I'm originally from, and they provided
Teams internships for the summer and the church would pay
a stipend for us. However, the cutch twenty two was
(02:57):
that we would have to take financial literacyque verses every
Monday in order to get paid out. I know, I
know it was from ourselves, from like spending me responsibly
and things of that nature, and then setting up a
bank account for us UM with the credit Local Credit Union,
(03:18):
and through that we had a speaker come in and
talk about debt, student loan debt, credit card debt, and
I was shook. I was just like, I cannot go
to college and take on this debt. It's not that serious.
And that was the first kind of seeds I guess
that started to be planted that this was not only
going to be an educational decision. I was making but
it was also going to be a financial decision that
(03:40):
I was making. So it's actually a Girl Scout And
as a Girl Scout, the end of the year ceremony
um one of the graduating seniors that was a couple
of years older than me, she got a hundred and
fifty thou dollars to go to Spellman College. And I
was just like, I had no idea that college even
cost that much money, let alone, So so I like
(04:02):
though to her and I was just like, hey, like,
how did you get a hundred and fifty thousand dollars?
And she told me that her mom was actually like
the scholarship guru and knew how to get scholarships for college.
So I pitched myself to her mom and she worked
with me for six weeks in the book when Public
Library to package myself for the first scholarship. I was
trying to yes, I love this so it really is
(04:24):
a community story and really trying to navigate that landscape.
And I wanted to get the Girl Scout scholarship and
only went to one Girl Scout in New York City,
so she like prepped me, trained me, And that's also
when I started to figure out there's like a strategy
to success, right It just even if you have all
the ingredients and things of that nature, you still need
(04:45):
to be able to present and package yourself in that way.
And I ended up earning the Girl Scout Scholarship, and
then I also ended up earning the Posse Foundation Scholarship,
which was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to go
to Boston College and massachute a billion. Are you giving
me good? Yeah, So that's how my journey started. But
what really kind of clicked the light bulb for me
(05:08):
was when I got to undergrad and I went to
a predominantly white institution. It was five hundred freshmen twelve
black students of color, and I was just so culture shocked,
especially coming from New York City. I was just like,
we have landed and a different planet, pluto um. But
(05:30):
I also saw that students of color were struggling financially there,
and and also, you know there's a Brooke College students
in general, right, we all don't have like a whole
bunch of disposable funds. But I also saw like students
of color color struggled a little bit more, and it
was because of some mis management of funds as well
as lack of financial literacy that I had been introduced
(05:50):
to as a as a teenager. And also one of
my friends who went to school in Virginia during summer
break going into sophomore year, she said she had to
leave and come back to City College because she did
not budget out all four years of school, so her
parents only had enough or scrapped together enough money. And
you see these like all the times go fund needs
(06:11):
to try to like close up gaps for college education too,
for her only to go there one time, and I
was like, well, what if I never met um that
young lady and girl Scouts and her mother, like I
could have been in a similar situation. Absolutely, Wow, Natia,
that's a great story. And I mean, I just love
how you put all the pieces together. It's like you
(06:32):
had your lifeb all moment You're like, wait a second,
you can actually get gifted and granted scholarships. And then
you went after and studied like you prepared for that
grant and that process. You know, it was probably just
as hard as you were preparing for your S A T. S.
But you did it. That's incredible. Thank you so much.
And I was just like, you know, we need this
(06:55):
information in our community. And I had one on to
study a broad trip to Malaysia and Asia is an
Islamic country and they have tenants where everyone in society
has to give back, and I thought that was like amazing,
And I was like, I don't have a whole bunch
of money as a college student, but I know information
as power, and I can have information that could change
(07:16):
the trajectory of specifically woman of color because it's specifically speaking, um,
we are going to college and higher rates than other groups,
but then we're also taking on the most student loan
debt as well. Yeah, you know, I would say something
that was really interesting. I'm based here in Atlanta and
worked closely with more House and Smellmen a lot of
the HBCUs here as well as Georgia Tech. And when
(07:38):
the pandemic hit the h b c U s and
it was like everybody clear off campus, but you had
to continue with your school work. There was a huge
outreach and cry for people who you know, they might
be going back to their hometown in Alabama wherever, and
there was no WiFi or they only had laptops that
were available for one person in the household. So like
(08:01):
those were problems that were native to like our communities
that I think, you know, when we went to Georgia Tech,
you know, a lot of the white students or you know,
perhaps Georgia Texas you know, didn't have to combat with
and like the funds to even solve those problems weren't
available to a lot of students, and so we saw
a huge decline in students who couldn't come back after
the pandemic. Oh wow, yes, that is a very common occurrence.
(08:25):
We actually did like a light survey. We our program
now goes all the way up to college because we
found that once they got their scholarships to school or
their funding to school, the journey wasn't quite over yet. Right.
Financial literacy is one of those things even as an adult,
I'm like, put that handback. It's very tempting. Maybe I
(08:45):
should buy that, or maybe I should So high school
and college students, the information has to be reiterated over
and over and over again. Totally becomes more of a
behavior and habit. It becomes a language and a lifestyle
as opposed to you because you're constantly making decisions. Alright,
money movers, that's it. For the conversation with Nataia Walker,
but make sure you keep it locked to the Money
(09:07):
Moves Podcast powered by green One. We've got a whole
lot more coming up next. Thank you so much for
tuning in Money Moves audience. If you want more or
a recap of this episode, please go to the Bank
Greenwood dot com and check out the Money Moves Podcast blogs.
Stay tuned tomorrow and every day this week. From very
special Money Versus Moves Now, it's not just the advertisers
(09:30):
that are being given to us. We want to anchor
at the time, and we've provided us with it. But
now we can go out and get our home because
in this game, people look at the numbers mark from
our expert. By year three we start to get a
high blufs of demand. So about two hundred and fifty girls,
we're starting to apply shop program. Wow. Yeah, we're like
so excited, but we only have fifteen and you won't
(09:51):
want to miss. There were a lot of like sitting
in the corner, trimbling crying nice like, oh, by gotten word,
what am I gonna do? There were a lot of
those times, and there were times where you know, the
work didn't come when I Thought Money Moves as an
I heart Radio podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced by
Sunwise Media, Inc. For more podcasts on i heart Radio,
(10:12):
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts from.
Hey Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. Hey Money Movers, Welcome
to the Money Moves podcast powered by Greenwood. Our guest
(00:22):
today is the executive director and founder of the Siece
of Fortune eighth. This nonprofit focuses on helping teenage women
of color to navigate the college scholarship and application process
while simultaneously educating them in career in financial management skills.
To date, she has helped college applicants earn more than
fifteen million dollars in scholarships and grants. She has been
(00:47):
honored as one of the Forbes thirty Under thirty leaders
and has been featured in Brack Enterprise and The Huffington's
Post Money Movers. Let's welcome the inspiring and young entrepreneur
Nataia Walker to the podcast. Hi to Tia, Hello, are
so happy to be here today. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, We
(01:07):
are so happy to have you here and to tire,
you are really out there making a difference in the
lives of so many people. Fifteen million dollars is huge
and a monumental win and I know a lot of
people felt the effects of that. Yes, indeed, we are
so excited to be able to have reached so many
(01:28):
young women of color last year, especially during the pandemic
when it seems like the whole world has shut down,
but then also the school shut down their doors to students,
making it difficult for them to be able to access
these types of resources and information to make informed decisions
about their college process. Oh absolutely, I mean, just you know,
(01:49):
as we pause and look back after having gone through
this global pandemic, being shut down and how hard that
was on so many students. You know, they had to
go back home to try and learn learn through zooms.
You're right like it. It's the ramifications of that and
being cut off from access to education counselors on campus
must have been huge. So you really created quite the solution. Indeed,
(02:12):
I want to take us back a little bit because
you're a young entrepreneur, but talk a little bit about
where this passion arose from where you know, what was
it that was so important to you to help and
reach back and help young women of color while they're
still in high school be able to go and achieve
these scholarships and grants. I am so glad you asked that,
because it really is a story about my community. When
(02:35):
I was a high school junior, I had been part
of eight I was like a non nonprofit hybrid that
my church had started called Teams that I mean business,
and they partnered with the Myrtle Avenue bid in Brooklyn,
New York, That's where I'm originally from, and they provided
Teams internships for the summer and the church would pay
a stipend for us. However, the cutch twenty two was
(02:57):
that we would have to take financial literacyque verses every
Monday in order to get paid out. I know, I
know it was from ourselves, from like spending me responsibly
and things of that nature, and then setting up a
bank account for us UM with the credit Local Credit Union,
(03:18):
and through that we had a speaker come in and
talk about debt, student loan debt, credit card debt, and
I was shook. I was just like, I cannot go
to college and take on this debt. It's not that serious.
And that was the first kind of seeds I guess
that started to be planted that this was not only
going to be an educational decision. I was making but
it was also going to be a financial decision that
(03:40):
I was making. So it's actually a Girl Scout And
as a Girl Scout, the end of the year ceremony
um one of the graduating seniors that was a couple
of years older than me, she got a hundred and
fifty thou dollars to go to Spellman College. And I
was just like, I had no idea that college even
cost that much money, let alone, So so I like
(04:02):
though to her and I was just like, hey, like,
how did you get a hundred and fifty thousand dollars?
And she told me that her mom was actually like
the scholarship guru and knew how to get scholarships for college.
So I pitched myself to her mom and she worked
with me for six weeks in the book when Public
Library to package myself for the first scholarship. I was
trying to yes, I love this so it really is
(04:24):
a community story and really trying to navigate that landscape.
And I wanted to get the Girl Scout scholarship and
only went to one Girl Scout in New York City,
so she like prepped me, trained me, And that's also
when I started to figure out there's like a strategy
to success, right It just even if you have all
the ingredients and things of that nature, you still need
(04:45):
to be able to present and package yourself in that way.
And I ended up earning the Girl Scout Scholarship, and
then I also ended up earning the Posse Foundation Scholarship,
which was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to go
to Boston College and massachute a billion. Are you giving
me good? Yeah, So that's how my journey started. But
what really kind of clicked the light bulb for me
(05:08):
was when I got to undergrad and I went to
a predominantly white institution. It was five hundred freshmen twelve
black students of color, and I was just so culture shocked,
especially coming from New York City. I was just like,
we have landed and a different planet, pluto um. But
(05:30):
I also saw that students of color were struggling financially there,
and and also, you know there's a Brooke College students
in general, right, we all don't have like a whole
bunch of disposable funds. But I also saw like students
of color color struggled a little bit more, and it
was because of some mis management of funds as well
as lack of financial literacy that I had been introduced
(05:50):
to as a as a teenager. And also one of
my friends who went to school in Virginia during summer
break going into sophomore year, she said she had to
leave and come back to City College because she did
not budget out all four years of school, so her
parents only had enough or scrapped together enough money. And
you see these like all the times go fund needs
(06:11):
to try to like close up gaps for college education too,
for her only to go there one time, and I
was like, well, what if I never met um that
young lady and girl Scouts and her mother, like I
could have been in a similar situation. Absolutely, Wow, Natia,
that's a great story. And I mean, I just love
how you put all the pieces together. It's like you
(06:32):
had your lifeb all moment You're like, wait a second,
you can actually get gifted and granted scholarships. And then
you went after and studied like you prepared for that
grant and that process. You know, it was probably just
as hard as you were preparing for your S A T. S.
But you did it. That's incredible. Thank you so much.
And I was just like, you know, we need this
(06:55):
information in our community. And I had one on to
study a broad trip to Malaysia and Asia is an
Islamic country and they have tenants where everyone in society
has to give back, and I thought that was like amazing,
And I was like, I don't have a whole bunch
of money as a college student, but I know information
as power, and I can have information that could change
(07:16):
the trajectory of specifically woman of color because it's specifically speaking, um,
we are going to college and higher rates than other groups,
but then we're also taking on the most student loan
debt as well. Yeah, you know, I would say something
that was really interesting. I'm based here in Atlanta and
worked closely with more House and Smellmen a lot of
the HBCUs here as well as Georgia Tech. And when
(07:38):
the pandemic hit the h b c U s and
it was like everybody clear off campus, but you had
to continue with your school work. There was a huge
outreach and cry for people who you know, they might
be going back to their hometown in Alabama wherever, and
there was no WiFi or they only had laptops that
were available for one person in the household. So like
(08:01):
those were problems that were native to like our communities
that I think, you know, when we went to Georgia Tech,
you know, a lot of the white students or you know,
perhaps Georgia Texas you know, didn't have to combat with
and like the funds to even solve those problems weren't
available to a lot of students, and so we saw
a huge decline in students who couldn't come back after
the pandemic. Oh wow, yes, that is a very common occurrence.
(08:25):
We actually did like a light survey. We our program
now goes all the way up to college because we
found that once they got their scholarships to school or
their funding to school, the journey wasn't quite over yet. Right.
Financial literacy is one of those things even as an adult,
I'm like, put that handback. It's very tempting. Maybe I
(08:45):
should buy that, or maybe I should So high school
and college students, the information has to be reiterated over
and over and over again. Totally becomes more of a
behavior and habit. It becomes a language and a lifestyle
as opposed to you because you're constantly making decisions. Alright,
money movers, that's it. For the conversation with Nataia Walker,
but make sure you keep it locked to the Money
(09:07):
Moves Podcast powered by green One. We've got a whole
lot more coming up next. Thank you so much for
tuning in Money Moves audience. If you want more or
a recap of this episode, please go to the Bank
Greenwood dot com and check out the Money Moves Podcast blogs.
Stay tuned tomorrow and every day this week. From very
special Money Versus Moves Now, it's not just the advertisers
(09:30):
that are being given to us. We want to anchor
at the time, and we've provided us with it. But
now we can go out and get our home because
in this game, people look at the numbers mark from
our expert. By year three we start to get a
high blufs of demand. So about two hundred and fifty girls,
we're starting to apply shop program. Wow. Yeah, we're like
so excited, but we only have fifteen and you won't
(09:51):
want to miss. There were a lot of like sitting
in the corner, trimbling crying nice like, oh, by gotten word,
what am I gonna do? There were a lot of
those times, and there were times where you know, the
work didn't come when I Thought Money Moves as an
I heart Radio podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced by
Sunwise Media, Inc. For more podcasts on i heart Radio,
(10:12):
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts from.
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