Carolina Panther spends day teaching financial literacy to students at Hidden Valley Elementary

CHARLOTTE — The life of a Carolina Panther is demanding. Practices, meetings and games take up every day of the week except one.

And running back Reggie Bonnafon choose to spend that day giving back. On Tuesday, Bonnafon spent the day reading Chris’s Candy Store Adventure to a crowd of second graders at Hidden Valley Elementary School.

The children’s book focuses on the basics of managing money as a first step towards financial literacy.

“Some kids, on one end, might not have a lot of knowledge about it. And some kids, on another in, are already getting taught lessons about entrepreneurship and investing in things like that. So just trying to bridge that gap and let kids know it’s possible for anybody. You’ve just got to start and have the knowledge to do it,” Bonnafon said.

Reading with Reggie all started with one trip to Hidden Valley Elementary, then another, then another, and another. With Bonnafon devoting his one day off to teaching children lessons they might not have received otherwise, from someone they would never expect to meet.

“One of the students went home and said yeah a Carolina Panthers came to our school today,” vice principal Kaz Muhammad said.

In the video at the top of the page, Channel 9′s DaShawn Brown speaks with Bonnafon about how he overcame his own issues with literacy after he was diagnosed with dyslexia at a young age.

“Man! It really puts things into perspective for me just to see how far I’ve come. I remember the times my mom being so frustrated with me struggling to read that sometimes she would break down crying. It just shows never giving up on yourself. Sometimes your weaknesses can definitely become your strengths.”

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