Sealaska partners with Spruce Root to guide students toward career, financial readiness

Early this summer, 34 students were guided through a series of financial wellness and career coaching workshops provided by #OneSealaska partner Spruce Root. Offered to the season’s cohort of shareholder interns as a part of Sealaska’s Intern Connect Week, the workshops provided participants an opportunity to grow existing knowledge and form new connections as they learned together as a group.

“Forming a strong financial foundation, especially for early-career or reskilling shareholders, is critical because it helps them figure out on their own terms what financial success can look like,” said workshop host Haley Armstrong, who serves as Spruce Root’s Program Manager for Financial Wellness. “That definition is different for everyone depending on your goals and where you’re at in life. Having the knowledge and tools to make those determinations yourself is priceless, and it’s something we were really excited to offer for Sealaka’s interns.”

Along with providing practical lessons about debt, budgeting, future planning and long-term financial and career goals to participants, the Spruce Root team led this summer’s intern cohort in a series of reflective career-focused exercises. Individually, each student was invited to hone in on their self-identified growth areas and discuss these “inner saboteurs” in breakout groups to learn how they might instead capitalize on those traits and harness them as strengths.

“Identifying weaknesses – and reframing them as potential strengths or ‘superpowers’ – can be one of the biggest professional challenges,” said Michael Mausbach, Spruce Root’s Regional Catalyst & Program Manager for Workforce Development. “Zeroing in on personal barriers, how you might be sabotaging yourself and by extension those around you, and then learning how to flip those barriers into opportunities to grow – these are soft skills that will continue to serve the interns for decades to come.”

Sealaska is honored to support Spruce Root with its mission of driving “a regenerative economy across Southeast Alaska so communities can forge futures grounded in this uniquely Indigenous place”. Spruce Root is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that was founded in February 2012 with $500,000 of seed money from Sealaska. Sealaska continues to provide annual funding as an investment in regional economic development. Spruce Root provides local entrepreneurs with access to business development and financial resources in the form of loan capital, business coaching, workshops, and competitions. The Shareholder Development team is grateful to Spruce Root for their reciprocal support of Sealaska’s internship program, helping to grow the students of today into tomorrow’s leaders.