About

Junior Achievement gives young people the knowledge and skills they need to own their economic success, plan for their future, and make smart academic and economic choices. JA's mission is to "inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy" and they do this through programs that focus on our three pillars of success: financial literacy, work readiness, and entrepreneurship.

JA programs empower students and provide crucial life lessons, enabling them to see the connection between the value of education and their future success in work and life. This way, the students JA reaches can spend more time planning for tomorrow, and less time worrying about today. Not only do JA programs prepare the students to make smart academic and economic decisions, they also promote economic inclusion by providing students with the knowledge and opportunity to grow and succeed.

In response to COVD-19, JA altered the way in which they have historically delivered programs to the students they reach. JA now offers digital programs taught virtually by local JA volunteers in hopes of meeting students wherever they are — at home or in the classroom. This past year has taught us how important JA programs are to the students they reach. Not just because of the educational component, but the fact that JA's sequential programs provide consistency in the lives of the students reached.

Many schools have a high population of at-risk students, and being displaced from a standard school setting disrupts the stability a traditional learning environment can provide. JA's digital programs offer that consistency and stability, even with not being in the classroom. These new digital resources have allowed JA to continue to promote a more equitable and just tomorrow for our students. Through JA's digital programming, they are able to provide young people even greater mentoring opportunities and progressive learning concepts from one grade level to the next.

JA Volunteers can support in many ways this year. Volunteering virtually in a classroom talking about careers, delivering JA's lessons in a workshop format, creating career videos for the locally developed JA Career & College Video series that reached over 40,000 JAC kids last year, JA Inspire Virtual plus so many more ways to support the mission.