Sherry Inouye and Jolene Benson recently volunteered a day working at Junior Achievement Program’s ‘Biztown’. It was a very busy, chaotic kind of day but both Sherry and Jolene say they would do it again if they had the opportunity!

Here’s a little history on the program:

Junior Achievement was first started back in 1919, by the President of AT&T Theodore N. Vail, and it was then called the Boys’ & Girl’s Bureau.   In 1920 the name was formally changed to the Junior Achievement Bureau and at that time Horace Moses became the chairman.  The early purpose of the program was to raise funds for agriculture and implementing solutions.

Today the focus of the program is on Economics, having corporate volunteers bring business realities into the classroom.  Students that are part of the program learn the basics of how to run a business, whether it’s being a CEO, a CFO, paying their taxes, or learning how to pay utility bills and balance a check book.

Since 1919, Junior Achievement has reached more than 105 million young people worldwide, with more than 71 million students reached in the United States.  The 5.5 acre Auburn facility was donated by the Boeing Company as the “Boeing Center for Free Enterprise,” and is one of the only JA facilities that hosts the Biztown program.

The 28,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility consists of many different businesses that make up a mock ‘town.’ There is a power company, bank, IRS office, UPS Store, a news station, a restaurant etc.  Sherry & Jolene volunteered to be in charge of a specific business and oversee a group of students who were learning how to run the business.  Each student had specific job descriptions and was required to fulfill specific tasks within the day…much like a real job! 

Jolene says that “it was really cool to be able to see the kids outside of the traditional classroom setting, having fun and being excited, but still learning and working hard.  I think it helped to solidify all the “boring” stuff they had to learn in school beforehand by making them use the skills in their “jobs.”

The students get to buy things at Biztown with their ‘paychecks’ so Sherry and Jolene had fun teaching them how to manage their money.  The students didn’t quite understand that the checks coming into Puget Sound Energy couldn’t just be given to them!

All in all it was a very fulfilling experience for both of them.  Junior Achievement is a great program.  If you have any questions or comments about how to get involved or any information in this blog please feel free to do so via our Facebook page:  www.facebook.com/fbcpa

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