NGPF Speaker Series: Join us for an energizing conversation with Dr. De'Shawn C. Washington, Founder and President of Cultivating Changemakers, LLC, an award-winning educator, scholar, and public education advocate. Dr. Washington was the 2024 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year and the 2025 Massachusetts Teaching Excellence Award winner through the National Education Association, and is a two-time TEDx speaker. He earned his doctorate in Educational Leadership and Policy from Vanderbilt University's Peabody College, and through Cultivating Changemakers he is developing an innovative K–12 financial literacy curriculum that integrates social justice, literacy, and mathematics. We'll discuss why money lessons land differently when they're woven into reading and math rather than taught in isolation, how his nine years as an elementary school teacher building resilient, collaborative classrooms shaped his approach, and what it means to root financial education in joy, identity, and community change. Dr. Washington will also share his children's book, CiCi and the Lemonade Harvest, an empowering story designed to help children build confidence, financial knowledge, and a future filled with possibility. You'll walk away with practical strategies for making money lessons culturally relevant and engaging — and a renewed belief that every student can become a changemaker.