The Kansas Office of the State Bank Commissioner will award three of four consumer education grant checks for financial literacy at 1 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 12, in John Bardo Center at Wichita State. All media outlets are welcome to attend the presentation.

John Bardo Center, formerly the Experiential Engineering Building, is located on WSU’s Innovation Campus, facing 17th Street between Oliver and Hillside.

Entry to the building and its parking lot are from 17th Street North. Parking is no issue near the building.

The three grants will each be awarded to Consumer Credit Counseling Service Inc. (CCCS), the Kansas Council on Economic Education (KCEE) and The Pando Initiative.

Each of these agencies are based in Wichita, but their financial literacy efforts impact all of Kansas. WSU collaborates with all three grant winners in various ways.

CCCS provides financial counseling and education in Kansas. Last year it reached over 7,300 Kansans about topics ranging from budgeting, credit reports, identity theft, student loan debt, costs of college and debt reduction.

CCCS’s grant will support similar educational presentations in schools and in the community.

KCEE’s vision is that every Kansas K-12 student will become economically and financially literate so they will be more knowledgeable consumers, wiser savers and investors, better employees and more responsible citizens.

The grant will support KCEE’s Kansas Personal Finance Challenge, a competition for middle and high school students to test their personal finance knowledge.

The grant also supports the personal finance area of the KCEE LifeSmarts program, helping students to become more knowledgeable consumers.

WSU’s Barton School of Business hosts KCEE, a nonprofit organization affiliated with all six Kansas public universities.

The Pando Initiative teaches Reality U to high school students, a financial simulation which teaches them about personal finance and the importance of good decision-making.

Through the Office of the State Bank Commissioner, they have gone from serving several Wichita high schools in 2002 to over 10,000 middle and high school students throughout Kansas this year.

Their grant will support Reality U and its ongoing growth across Kansas high schools and middle schools.

Wichita State is distinctive for opening pathways to applied learning, applied research and career opportunities, alongside unsurpassed classroom, laboratory and online education. The university's beautiful 330-acre main campus is a supportive, rapidly expanding learn-work-live-play environment, where students gain knowledge and credentials to prepare for fulfilling lives and careers. Students enjoy a wide selection of day, evening and summer courses in more than 200 areas of study at the main campus and other locations throughout the metro area and online. WSU's approximately 16,000 students come from every state in the U.S. and more than 100 other countries. Wichita State's Innovation Campus is an interconnected community of partnership buildings, laboratories and mixed-use areas where students, faculty, staff, entrepreneurs and businesses have access to the university's vast resources and technology. For more information, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/wichitastate and Facebook at www.facebook.com/wichita.state.