hi i'm bob garrett. hackensack university medical center believes that all citizens need to be informed about the important health issues that affect their daily lives. that's why we're proud to support programming produced by the caucus educational corporation and their partners in public television. funding for this edition of caucus new jersey has been provided by the new jersey education association. working for great public schools for every child; hackensack university health network; njit, new jersey institute of technology; new jersey's credit unions; banking you can trust; pse&g, committed to improving new jersey's economy and strengthing its communities; md advantage insurance company of new jersey; and by community education centers. promotional support provided by the record, north jersey's trusted source and northjersey.com, and by the new jersey business and industry association and

its monthly magazine, new jersey business. [music playing] [music playing] hi, i'm steve adubato. everything you've ever wanted or needed to know about your credit: good credit, bad credit, and how you deal with your credit situation. we are pleased to welcome marie gamble, who is a business development specialist with jersey shore federal credit union. i want to thank you very much for joining us, marie. we were talking right before we got on the air about this whole situation about good and bad credit. first of all, how do you actually...what do you need to do to have really good credit other than just pay your bills on time? is it that simple? well, that is the main thing you have to do. paying your bills on time is definitely very important along with not maxing out trade lines that you have open. trade lines? so credit

cards, or maybe like, a line of credit that you might have things like that that have a maximum, you don't want to max them out. someone says wait a minute, but i've got i've got the line of credit for $50,000, why not use the whole thing? not necessarily a good idea? no, because you're score can start to go down as you're maxing yourself out. so you want to try to keep it below maybe 25% of whatever your maximum availablity is and that definitely helps along with paying your bills on time. ok, so, the other thing i asked you, because i know a lot of my friends watching right now have some credit situations, you know who you are, so if someone is now identified as having "bad credit," some of my friends, or people who've experienced this say, well that's it, i'm on some list, they think they're on some list with bad credit and they can't get off and you said that's not necessarily true. no. it definitely hurts you if you don't pay things on time and it affects your credit and how... is it a credit score? your credit score, along with your credit

history, the length of time you've had your loans or trade lines open, that all impacts your overall appearance to the eyes of the lender. how risky you seem to them if you want to borrow money from them. so if you have had something happen... issues? issues. it's not the end, you just have to start doing the right things to start correcting the problem. for example? continue to pay things on time. it's also important just to establish a savings account for yourself, an emergency fund. why would that matter? because you're less likely to charge something if you have an emergency fund for it. the more you have to charge for things that you don't actually have the money for, the more likely you are to overspend and not be able to pay those things back, and if you owe more than what you can actually afford, that's when you can start to get into some trouble. but you also told us about this other initiative, and by the way, take advantage of the information at the bottom of your screen, you see it there, the jerseyshorefcu.org?

right? umm-hmm. how about this one? a credit builder loan. yes. i looked at that and thought, what is that? we offer a credit builder loan and a lot of different institutions do offer types of secured cards or credit builder loans that can help you. ours is a secured loan. what is secured mean? secured means that there's some sort of collateral. so if you went to purchase an auto loan, that is secured by that vehicle. so our credit builder loan is secured because we hold the funds that we're, we're letting you borrow, so if you want to borrow a thousand dollars, we're actually going to hold that and it's not going to be released to you until you're making your payments on time with us. so it's called secured because if you stop paying, we still have that money, there is no loss to us. but, it goes on your credit report as an installment loan. so if you're paying that on time, that's getting reported to the credit bureau which either will help

you build credit if you don't have any, or help you repair it if you've had some issues. so that's a credit builder loan. that's the credit builder loan. why are you so interested in talking to high school students about financial education? why is that so important? because as a young adult, you're entering the world at 18, and all of a sudden, you have all these responsibilites. so you're might be going to college, you might be starting work, you need to pay bills, you might want to get a car, just, the real world is happening and part of that is having a bank account or borrowing money to purchase a car or something like that. so it's really important just to give them the basic tools so that when they go out and they open up a checking account, they understand exactly what that means and the responsibility that they have of using a debit card and only using what's in their account and starting to establish a credit history for themselves so that they can prepare for their futures. so eventually if they want to purchase a car, or buy a home or different things like that, they are setting up their

foundation in the right direction. is it fair to say, marie, that a lot of people at that age make certain mistakes? yes. that they wind up living with for a long time after that? umm-hmm. i think what we saw before and what we still see now is students get student credit cards, maybe, and it's a way for an institution to give them a chance to start building their credit history... but excuse me for interrupting, but on campus, everywhere you go, it just seems so easy for those students to get their hands on a credit card, so could it be that for a lot of students, they think: i'll get that card. i don't have to have the cash. and they've never had that privilege before, and a lot of times, would you call that a privilege? they've... being able just to spend money that they don't actually have. right, ok. so especially in south jersey, which is where i'm from, it's very seasonal, so if you're a college student, you may be working in the summers, and going to school throughout the fall and the winter, so they don't account

for the, you know, that they might not have money throughout the year to pay these things and they start spending, thinking they'll be able to pay it back, but the bill is going to come every month regardless, and then it's interest on top of interest, and before they know it, they possibily could have maxed themselves out, or spent too much, and not -- sure-- had the money to afford it. let's deal with the other end real quick if we could, seniors are often victims of scams, financial scams, because? because they can be vulnerable, and they may be dependent upon family members, or caregivers because they may be frail, or suffering from different health issues, and things like that, and they tend to be a little more trusting, and they don't realize all the things that technology can do and all the things that people are... that are available to them to take advantage of other people. so you folks actually go out to senior buildings where older people, or mature people are and you're giving seminars, you're talking to them, you're telling them about the red flags that they should be looking for, the warning signs, right? yes, we want

to go out and spread the word and take the knowledge that we know and the information that we have and pass it along so that it betters the community that we're working in and we just try to continue to do that every year as often as we can with whatever centers or employers want to use us and we come in, there's no charge or anything like that, just to spread that information to them. so it's a great service. marie gamble, business development specialist, jersey shore federal credit union. i want you to thank you for joining us. thank you for having me. very important. yes. stay there. we'll be right back, right after this. if you would like more information on this program, or if you'd like to express an opinion, email us at: info@caucusnj.org. visit us online at caucusnj.org. find us on facebook at: facebook.com/ steveadubatophd and follow us on twitter at: @steveadubato. here he is:

marced solis who is a spanish teacher at eisenhower middle school in roxbury township, and it's an honor to have you with us. thank you so much. we should also let folks know that in a previous life, tito santana, the intercontinental champion, wwf world champion there as well. classroom closeup, our partners at the njea, their series, they did a feature on you, you know that, right? yes, they did, yeah. you saw it, not everybody else saw it, we need to take a look at this classroom closeup series, and then you're going to get a chance to listen to marced and his incredible story. let's look at the videotape. [music playing] [in spanish] clase? si. las endings de -ar verbs: -o, -as, -a... spanish teacher marced solis is going over some lessons with his students. "we are going to learn a little bit..." mr. solis started teaching later in life in fact, some may recognize him from a different career, one where he went by a different name. [untelligible]

look out, atomic drop coming up, oh and a beauty. a two-time intercontinental and two- time wwe tag team champion, tito santana! [crowd cheers] my greatest accomplishment i won the belt back in baltimore, the arena exploded, you know, it was just a, it was just a great feeling. it was a lasting memory. but his path to becoming a famous wrestler wasn't easy. born in mexico, his family traveled throughout the united states as migrant farm workers. this prevented merced from attending school on a regular basis. in fact, he didn't finish a full year until he reached the ninth grade. i look back of myself being a student, and i was always behind because i was never in school full-time, so there's a lot of times that i just didn't understand things. merced

made a turnaround academically in high school thanks in part to the advice and encouragement of his football coach, he went on to play in college and eventually signed with the kansas city chiefs, but the money offered by professional wrestling was too good to pass up. merced spent the better part of 15 years on the road as a famous pro wrestler, but fame and fortune could not replace the empty feeling of being away from his wife and growing family. i was on the road 350 days a year. i made up my mind, i didn't want to be on the road anymore and i kind of broke down and worried about what i was going to do with the rest of my life. and i said, i just prayed, and i asked the lord to help me and i became a teacher and things are good for us. his goal as a teacher was clear: to make sure that none of his students would struggle as

he once did. this is very brave for connor to be up here and i'm very proud of him. not only, like, in spanish has he helped me get better, but he kind of teaches everyone to be a better person. ready mr. solis? indeed. ok. hola, como estas? he's told us about his background, but i think he wants us to focus on why he's here, to teach us spanish more than to talk about how he was a wrestler because the point of him teaching is to have us learn new things. right now, i feel like i'm on top of the mountain. there's nothing else that i look forward in doing. i want to retire as a teacher. [students speaking spanish in unison.] arriba! [music playing] how great. how great does that feel? it never gets old looking at that. it never gets old, it's great. you know, i can't imagine either situation, being the champion that you

were, but also having one of those young students of yours saying he wants us to be better people, a better person. what's that like for you? well, it's you know, i heard one of the teachers earlier talking in there that we're almost raising the kids you know, and... do you feel like you're doing that to some extent? i think so, yeah. and we're the role models that they look up to and we've got to teach them. there's a lot of things they don't know. do you accept it? yeah, i accept it. i mean i had a good, a great mom, my father wasn't around much, so i know there's a lot of kids that have the same situations that i had or even worse that are looking for just somebody and we keep

hearing it from our administrators that sometimes the only positive things they hear in their day is from a teacher. and when they're in my class i want them to have a good experience. in the 1980's, along with millions of others, i was a wrestling fan and just admire you on so many levels, cheering for you like so many others. those accolades, that cheering, the fans, the attention, the celebrity, comparing it to going in every day with those kids...do you miss the other celebrity? no, i don't. i miss getting in the ring and in front of thousands and thousands of people and getting cheered on. believe it r not, i still do it. i know you do. fundraisers and

appearances and my wife says, how long do you plan to do it? and i tell her, well, as long as the fans don't holler get out of the ring, you old fart! that's not happening. they still cheer for me and and it's a good feeling. it doesn't get old and it never will. and you know, the fans just like to, you know, see you step into the ring and i can't do what i used to do in the ring, there's no doubt, i don't even try because... it's dangerous. i don't want to get hurt. but your kids cheer you in a different way, even if they're not getting up and giving you a standing ovation, you get something different from them, don't you? yes i do. it's a, it's so transparent when the kids enjoy, and when you can get the kids focused and when you can get a lesson across, and when you're teaching them something about life just like the kids, you know, i always take a little time and talk

about my life experiences and it's not about spanish all the time, it's about life and some of the kids really need to hear some of those things. you want to make sure that those kids don't struggle the way you struggled. i want to make sure that those kids who don't see a light at the end of the tunnel can understand that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and if they really want something bad enough, they can get there, and they can accomplish... it didn't look like i had a chance to go to college and i worked it out. yeah. you have to figure it out and never give up. you honor us, and we appreciate you being, beyond being a celebrity, being the teacher you are for those young people every day and i have a feeling you may be inspiring others who are doing something right now and

they may feel they are called to do something else. you felt you were called and i want to thank you very much for being with us. thank you so much. ok. stay with us, we'll be right back right after this. thank you. if you would like more information on this program or if you'd like to express an opinion, email us at: info@caucusnj.org, visit us online at caucusnj.org. find us on facebook at facebook.com/ steveadubatophd and follow us on twitter @steveadubato. we welcome jim jacob, who is the president and chief executive officer of an organization called new jersey shares. good to see you, jim. good to see you, steve. for those of you who do not know what new jersey shares is, share. new jersey shares is a statewide, nonprofit organization that helps people who don't qualify for federal or state assistance to pay their energy, telephone and water bills. so we are the safety

net for folks who don't qualify for any other kind of assistance. throughout this segment, you're going to see the new jersey shares web site up, go to it right now. but i want people to know that you have partners, right, you have a lot of partners in the utility world, the water world, water world...and folks who provide water... explain who those partners are and why they matter so much. well absolutely. in our energy program, which is a program that we've been running since our inception in 1998, we partner with every electric and natural gas utility, so it's public service electric and gas, new jersey natural gas, elizabethtown gas, rockland electric, jersey central power and light, south jersey gas, and atlantic city electric. what do you partner with them to do, though? well we work with them and they've helped us over the years by letting people know that we exist and also by putting in bill inserts so that people can contribute to us as a nonprofit. we reach out to them, we partner with them, at events, and around the state and we help their customers who can't afford to pay their bills. give us a for instance because there are several programs you have. and by the way, all of

these will be listed: energy assistance, water bill payment assistance, and communication lifeline, which is the verizon piece of this as well, which has to do with telephone? it does. the communications lifeline program that verizon new jersey works with us on, we administer that program, we help people to get enrolled in it and we actually have a human service call center where people can call in, get information about the verizon program, but also 10 or 12 other programs that might help them. last year, we spoke to 135,000 of our neighbors across new jersey with that program, trying to... you call them neighbors? yeah, they are our neighbors. neighbors helping neighbors? that's exactly what, it's the experience i've had in new jersey and it's the absolutely the basis for our organization, so verizon has been a wonderful partner with us. we do community events around the state, more than 200, and we have more than 300 community- based organizations that we partner with and we also have the two water programs. yeah, do the water piece. sure. united water has been working with us for many years to help their customers who can't pay a

bill and in fact, they work with us in several of the other states in which they do business and we also do a program for new jersey american water. but here's the thing i'm thinking about, as people are watching, how do they know if they would qualify, like who qualifies, who doesn't, like how do you know that? well one of the ways, they can visit our web site, www.njshares.org, which is up, we're, we'll be putting it up right in about two seconds, there it is right there. all right, go ahead. and they can visit our web site. the other way they find out about it is if they call their utility company whether that's energy, water or telephone, the folks they speak to will help them to navigate through the system and to find the organization that they need. so in the case of those who don't qualify for other programs, for energy that would be us, in the case of the water, we'd be the direct contact on that, in the case of the verizon communications program, and that's so wonderful, because it keeps people connected, that's more than $20 a month discount. whoa, back up, explain that. well for people

who are qualified, and there are ten programs that people automatically qualify for, but wouldn't automatically get the discount, they have to apply for it. so if someone, for example, has received assistance from the liheap program, which is the home energy assistance program, they're qualified for communications lifeline. if they've received benefits from the snap program, for food stamps, people who really are struggling, they can qualify for this. so hold on, that means if they qualify for those, are those federal programs? yes. if they qualify for say, that food program, the snap program, right? right. that means they automatically qualify? they would automatically be qualified for, to apply for the communications lifeline program, and then they would receive a discount of more than $20 on their local telephone service. now for... that's huge. it's huge because for lower income families, everything helps, and $20 a month makes a significant difference for people who are working hard, trying to pay their bills, and this would keep them connected. and for seniors... hmm, talk about our senior piece. and for seniors and people who have medical

issues, being connected is so important. it is so difficult for them to make local calls to their doctors, and to other medical providers, sometimes those calls take a while, even if they're dealing with their insurers, it takes a while. and so to have a program that gives them unlimited local service, and it's essentially free. where did you guys even come from? where does new jersey shares even come from? well, in the mid-1990s, a group of people, some were advocates for different organizations, some folks who were working in government at the time, and some of the utility companies got together and decided we needed a statewide approach to helping people. one consistent program with policies that would really serve all over the state, so whether you're in cape may, or you're in passaic, you're going to get the same program, with the same services, and the same requirements. so it's a consortium of all these people? well they helped us form new jersey shares. and so in 1998, we became

operational. and in our first year, because we started at the end of the year, we helped 99 families, and we were ecstatic about that. and today, we've helped more than 178,000 of our neighbors across new jersey to keep connected, to keep their electric and gas on, it helps people's... the water? water. but you're not satisfied, you're looking to expand. well absolutely. describe that. well the need so far exceeds anyone's ability to help and in the case of the energy program, we serve moderate income households that don't qualify for anything else. so truly, they need a safety net. people can fall into trouble with unemployment being what it has been for the last several years, reduction in hours, medical expenses, all of those things contribute to a temporary crisis. and the remarkable thing about our program is that when we look at the data, very few people come to us more than once and very... you mean they're repeat customers, if you will? or neighbors? so over 15 years, we've gone back and looked at the history of

folks, and so, once is typical, maybe twice, rarely any more than that because it's a temporary crisis, they fix it. so, i'm sorry, so those are not repeat folks who come back you have to deal with the situation. we deal with the... but if you don't deal with that situation, and they don't get help from new jersey shares, what could happen? well their service gets turned off, they lose electric or gas, and one of the things that... or they can't be communicating or the phone... they can't be connected, or their water gets turned off and the utilities don't want that, and certainly it's not good for the customers, and what we're concerned about as a nonprofit organization, as a human service organization, is we don't want people making bad choices. we don't want them to light their homes with candles, we don't want them to heat their homes with unsafe devices, and in the summer, we certainly don't want seniors and persons with medical issues going without fans or air conditioning because they can't get their power. so we're there to help them to do that. and this network of partners we have around the state, the agencies that work with us, they're addressing the other issues that people

might have, whether, there's nutrition issues with food banks, or people need some help with a resume, or dress for success, or any of those things... it's all connected. it's all connected. we're a partnership. jim jacob, president and chief executive officer of a really teriffic organization that makes a difference every lives, every day in the lives of so many people who need it. it's called new jersey shares, and hopefully, you saw their web site up throughout the program and you take advantage of it. jim, we look forward to future segments with you talking about the important work that you do. thank you... thank you so much steve, we really appeciate it. the preceding program has been a production of the caucus educational corporation, celebrating over 25 years of broadcast excellence, and thirteen, for wnet, nj-tv, and whyy. funding for this edition of caucus new jersey has been provided by the new jersey education association, hackensack university health network, njit, new jersey institute of technology, new jersey's credit unions, pse&g,

md advantage insurance company of new jersey, and by community education centers. transportation provided by airbrook limousine, serving the metropolitan new york/new jersey area. caucus new jersey has been produced in partnership with tristar studios. my daughter passed away nine years ago, and i had to quit my job to raise my twin grandsons who have special needs. i needed a car to get them to doctor's appointments, but my credit was bad and i couldn't get approved for a loan, so i turned to the credit union and everything changed. they showed me how to fix the problems i had and helped me get approved for the loan i needed. since then, my credit got better and i can take care of my grandsons. i don't know where i would be without the credit union. [music playing]

captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: unrest continues to grip ferguson, missouri. calls for calm during the day give way to more violent protests at night, as the national guard struggles to help restore order. good evening, i'm judy woodruff, gwen is away. also ahead this tuesday, the head of doctors without borders says the threat of ebola has also threatened access to basic health care for many in west africa. >> right now most of the health care facility are being in morovia. the emergency within the emergency. >> woodruff: years a a