CHICAGO, April 23 (Xinhua) -- Financial educators and professionals gathered at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Monday to launch the city's tenth annual Money Smart Week, a campaign that aims to increase financial literacy among Chicago residents.

Over 200 organizations, both private and public, have partnered up with the Chicago Fed to host more than 500 financial seminars and Money Smart activities that will dominate Chicago this week. The free classes will tackle a variety of topics, from saving for college and retirement to financing a first mortgage.

The overall mission of Money Smart Week is to encourage good consumer spending habits and improve financial literacy among the general public, particularly through educating the next generation of Americans on the importance of saving money and making sound financial decisions.

While adults are still the majority of Money Smart attendees, many of them are also teachers who plan to use relevant concepts in school lesson plans, or concerned parents who want to know the best ways to teach good saving habits to their children.

At the Chicago Fed's Financial Literacy and Education Summit, which kicked off Money Smart Week, visiting speaker James Rajotte stressed the importance of financial education from a young age onwards, and that despite the challenge everyone should be familiar with such an important topic.

"It is all about lifelong learning and it's interesting in terms of 'teachable moments,'" said Rajotte, who is a Canadian Member of Parliament and Chairman of its Standing Committee on Finance.

"It shows that you have to really reach out to people of all ages. People who are say 30 or 40 who have not had financial literacy, it is harder to reach them I find, but it is even more important to do so if they have not had so at an earlier age," Rajotte said.

Fellow speaker Gail Hillebrand agreed with Rajotte, adding that in addition to individuals taking personal responsibility for their finances or learning from family members, formal school programs also had the benefit of increasing financial literacy among people from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds.

"The promise (of financial education) in K-12 is that it can equalize whatever might be missing in the social setting that the child is in," commented Hillebrand, emphasizing the effects elementary education programs like Money Smart Week could have on Chicago public school students.

Hillebrand is associate director of consumer education and engagement at the newly-created U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was established in response to the questionable lending policies that helped to trigger the 2008 financial crisis.

Almost four years since, the effects of the 2008 financial crisis are far from forgotten, and according to analysts, much of the U.S. housing bubble was due to people buying houses they could not afford after being persuaded by some professionals into questionable lending practices.

Activities such as Money Smart Week therefore aim to increase public awareness of financial issues such as mortgaging a home. The event's organizers said promoting financial literacy is particularly critical in the coming years, so that people may learn from the crisis.

Money Smart Week runs until April 28. The free events are presented in a variety of languages and venues across the city, and are taught by some of Chicago's leading financial professionals.