Jude Bernard talks about establishing credit with young people at Good Shepherd Services in East New York. He is the founder of The Brooklyn Bank, a nonprofit organization that focuses on financial literacy.

“The big thing is to get our people to be more focused on acquiring assets and spending their money a little bit wiser,” Bernard said.

Bernard wised up after the financial crisis 15 years ago. He lost everything and had to build himself back up.

“I was over-leveraged,” Bernard said. “I was making bad credit decisions. I just did not understand. I was not insured. I just don’t want to see anyone else go through that.”

Closing the racial wealth gap is a large part of the work.

“We make less money than everyone else,” said Bernard, who is Black. “Our rents? We can’t afford to pay the rents or purchase housing in the area, in the communities we live in. We can’t start businesses because we don’t have the credit.”

So Bernard travels around the borough talking about concepts like credit, stocks and real estate.

“We’re so far behind that the only way for us to catch up is to go twice or three times as fast as everyone else,” Bernard said.”

The Brooklyn Bank also holds a Black Money Forum each year on Juneteenth, the anniversary of the day enslaved African Americans in Texas learned they were emancipated.

The team recently opened free libraries outside their Bedford-Stuyvesant headquarters for people to educate themselves.

And for families who need more immediate help, turkey distributions for Thanksgiving and laptops for students heading back to school

“That’s more disposable income in the house,” Bernard said. “That’s more money they have to invest.”

Bernard says it’s about helping people who look like him have a brighter financial future.

“It’s these little minute changes in mindset that changes the community,” Bernard said.

For giving people the tools to save and spend wisely, Jude Bernard is our New Yorker of the Week.