SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Some teens learn about money from a book. Some learn it on the job.

For 65 teens involved with Carmichael, Calif.-based nonprofit BeMoneySmart
USA, they're getting it both ways.

The MoneySmart teach-and-hire program, started three years ago by an educator and her husband, offers year-round free workshops for teens on personal finance and business entrepreneurship. It also provides paid jobs for teens at two weekend farmers markets.

Alexandra Coulter, 16, is hooked on both. Bundled up in layered sweaters, boots and a warm scarf on a brisk Sunday morning last month, Coulter stood outside the Mount Moriah Farms organic apple booth, offering toothpicked slices of Fuji apples to passers-by.

"It's so hard to find a job these days, but here I've worked for sellers of bread, pistachios, hot pies and apples," said Coulter, who gets $8 an hour for her two five-hour shifts every weekend.

Besides a paycheck, the job experience and BeMoneySmartUSA business classes she's taken have "given me confidence to get up in front of a classroom. I'm kind of shy, so it helped me get over that."

Todd Evans, owner of the Clements, Calif.-based fruit farm, says he's sold on hiring teenage helpers. "I look for someone with a good work ethic, a good people person and someone who can speak well about my product."

He's found all those traits in Coulter, who said her father persuaded her to sign up for her first BeMoneySmartUSA class three years ago.

Since then, she's taken several workshops on how to manage her money and what it takes to be an entrepreneur. "You learn how to not just spend your money," she said, "but save it for the unexpected things that rise out of nowhere, like a car breakdown."

The high school junior, who hopes to go into entertainment law or art history conservation, said she's also learned how to do a job interview and "that a firm handshake is the most important [first impression]."

The BeMoneySmartUSA workshops started in 2009 with 250 students from 24 area schools. Last year, 750 students enrolled in the three-day or one-day sessions.

Marie Hall, a former teacher who co-founded the nonprofit with her husband, Don, says the financial literacy program resonates with teens, regardless of family upbringing or income bracket. The program's participants range from the children of affluent professionals to foster teens with no parental support.

"Where they come from economically has no influence on whether they need this. We all need this information," said Marie Hall, who also teaches personal finance classes at the Sacramento Urban League, Horizon Charter School and a Catholic elementary school in Carmichael.

Based on her pre-testing of students' financial skills, Hall says, "The kids who come from money don't have any more knowledge than lower-income kids. Their experiences may have been different, but their knowledge wasn't."

The BeMoneySmart workshops cover personal finance (budgeting, saving, spending, investing) and what Hall calls "the psychological side of money." There also are how-to classes on business entrepreneurship that walk teens through the mechanics of starting a company.

"We talk about the likelihood of a recession in their lifetime and how they can be prepared," said Hall, a parent of two teenagers. "We talk about the advantages of where they are now as young people in setting short- and long-term financial goals. It's not new stuff, but we present it in a way that's relevant to where they are now."

For the Halls, their two farmers markets provide a revenue stream to help fund their free workshops. They charge the 65-80 growers at each market $20 a stall per weekend.

"Nothing will push you faster into entrepreneurship than need," jokes Don Hall, co-owner of California Central Corp., a mortgage loan company that has turned to property management work during the recession.

They're adding a midweek market in February, with two more markets are planned for later this year.

For students, the farmers market jobs are a way to incorporate their book-learning.

Before teens can apply for a paid job, they must complete one of the free Saturday or three-day summer workshops. They also must put in six to eight hours of volunteer work at a farmers market before getting a permanent job. Under the "Rent-a-Teen" program, the growers pay the students' minimum-wage salaries.

Once hired, some are assigned to handle sales, some offer tasting samples, some do setup and cleanup. In addition, some write articles for the markets' quarterly newsletters.

Fifteen-year-old Alan Grossman has been spending his chilly Sunday mornings this winter behind the bottled vinegars and olive oils at Chacewater, a Kelseyville, Calif., company.

As part of the BeSmartMoneyUSA training, he and the other working teens get weekly online lessons to complete. A recent January assignment: "Name three resolutions for success on the job and describe them."

Grossman's picks? "I feel I should be more conversational. Be more informed about the olive oils so I can answer more questions. And be more friendly and outgoing," said the sophomore.

Another market regular, Gwendolyn Soellner, 19, is a foster teen who started volunteering at the market after aging out of the foster system. "The world is hard and the economy is scary," said Soellner. "But I've got a fire in me to open my own business."

At the weekend market, she's worked for an herb vendor, a coffee roasting company and as the market's mascot, encased in a giant corn costume. Living on her own, she's also starting a weekday job working with the Halls on a school fundraising project.

Teaching personal finance and job skills to teens and young kids is vital, notes Robert Love, principal of Our Lady of the Assumption school in Carmichael, where Hall teaches an elective class to fifth- to eighth-graders.

"They're getting hands-on life skills that aren't taught in the regular classroom," Love said, noting recent sessions on compound interest, resume writing and job interviewing skills. "A lot of adults could take this class and get something out of it. These are enduring lessons."