Q: Why can’t your nose be 12 inches long? A: Because then it would be a foot.

Corny jokes usually aren’t found in newsletters distributed by mutual fund companies. In this case, the above joke was one of five corny––yet cute––jokes included in the recent quarterly newsletter sent to children of investors in the Monetta mutual funds.

Monetta, a small, family-run no-load fund shop based in Wheaton, Ill., consists of three mutual funds: the Orion-Monetta Intermediate Bond Fund (MIBFX); the Monetta Fund (MONTX), an actively managed large-cap equity fund; and the Monetta Young Investor Fund (MYIFX), a hybrid active and passive large-cap equity fund.

Monetta Financial Services founder, president and portfolio manager Robert Bacarella says he has long been a big believer in educating young people about finances. It started with his own kids, one of whom, also named Robert, is now vice president and portfolio manager at Monetta.

In the mid-’90s, Monetta started an informal program asking its portfolio companies to send items that could be distributed to shareholders’ children. One such company was the maker of Crayola crayons; another company published a Leonard Nimoy-authored sci-fi comic book.

“Kids love getting things in the mail, and it was a trigger to make them say, ‘What’s this all about?’” Bacarella says. “It’s a first step in acclimating them to think about money and returns.”

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