Saver of the Month

Program recognizes current savers

Meet our June 2008 Saver:
Bienvenu Akpakla

CAAB's Saver of the Month program shares the individual stories behind our matched savings accounts. Current IDA or MDA savers are eligible to be nominated. If selected, each Saver of the Month will be profiled on our Web site and other CAAB communications.

Read about our previous Savers of the Month.

How to nominate a Saver of the Month

A Saver of the Month can be any current IDA or MDA program participant with a story to share. Nominations are accepted on a rolling basis but must be received by the second Friday of the month in order to be considered for the next month’s Saver.

One nominee will be selected each month and nominations may be held for up to one year for consideration for a future Saver of the Month profile. If your nominee is selected for Saver of the Month we will also ask you to provide us with a digital picture of the nominee (or can help you to get one).

Fill out our Saver of the Month Nomination Form today. Adobe Reader is required to view this file.

Previous Savers of the Month

	Gisela Hurtado and Pedro Cerdan delight in their two-year-old daughter Nicolle. She runs around their small apartment in Shaw, juice box in hand, climbing in and out of her dad’s lap as her parents talk about saving for her future. Read the full story...
	When Jian Zheng started high school in 2002, he faced the same anxieties and unknowns as any new student, magnified by the fact that he and his family had just moved to DC from China a few weeks before, and he knew little English. Read the full story...
	After college, Nekia Walker moved to DC to become an InnKeeper for Samaritan Inns. This experience underscored for Nekia the appeal and value of living in your own home, so she's saving for one with an IDA. Read the full story...
	Even in elementary school, Joey Betts was a businessman —earning money by walking kids to school, babysitting, and doing odd jobs at the barbershop and Chinese restaurant in his neighborhood. Read the full story...
	Jalal Naeem was listening to the radio when the announcer asked a trivia question about poet Amiri Baraka. Jalal called the station, answered correctly, and won two tickets to a play at the University of the District of Columbia. Next thing he knew, Jalal had enrolled there as a student, returning to higher education at age 51. Read the full story...
	Jennie Huffman is a life-long learner. A 57-year-old mother of three and grandmother of eight, she recently enrolled in the University of the District of Columbia to earn a degree in business management, but taking classes is nothing new to Jennie. Read the full story...
	Tosha Link and her husband, Theodore Bitho, have owned Bara Business Solutions, located at the corner of Georgia Avenue and Harvard Street in Northwest DC, for more than two years now. The small business had been serving the community for seven years when its previous owner decided to retire, and sold the business to Tosha, a frequent customer, and Theodore. Bara means “to create” in Aramaic. Read the full story...
	Like all mothers, Blanquet Morgan wants a better life for her children. “Where I’m living I’m not comfortable,” Blanquet says of her transitional apartment in a low-income housing development on Georgia Avenue. “I would like better living conditions for me and my two children. This is not such a pleasant neighborhood. My kids want to move too. At 10 and 14, they need privacy. Now they have to share a room. Read the full story...
	As she’s shopping for her first home, Ingrid Drake has a closer eye on the potential of the backyard than the house. “I want room for a laundry line in the backyard,” she says. “Global warming has knocked everyone’s socks off. I want to create a home that’s as environmentally friendly as possible in terms of composting, rainwater collection, and that sort of thing. Someday maybe I’ll have money to put in solar panels.” Read the full story...
	Suhey Dominguez doesn’t give up. During high school she lived in a group home and after 11th grade she left school. She’s been on her own since age 17. Now, at 23, Suhey has earned her GED and graduated from the Latin American Youth Center’s YouthBuild program. She's saving in an IDA to pay her education expenses at Prince George’s Community College. Read the full story...
	Tajuan Farmer knows that a little goes a long way. Saving just $4 a pay period for the past few years, he has accumulated enough money to buy several savings bonds for his five-year-old niece and nephew to help them go to college some day. It’s that attitude of steady, systematic saving that has enabled Tajuan Farmer to make progress on his dream of homeownership. Read the full story...