Society Notebook: Junior Achievement seeks organization specialists to connect with youngsters

Regional organization groups co-hosted a networking occasion with Junior Achievement of Maine to recruit a lot more volunteers to carry out the organization’s mission of teaching young folks about perform readiness and monetary literacy.

Members of Startup Maine, Maine Accelerates Development and Maine Angels had been amongst the one hundred folks who gathered March 9 at the Portland headquarters of payment processing business Wex for food and drink from Navis Café and brief presentations about Junior Achievement. Fourteen folks signed up to get a lot more data about volunteering.

“Our young folks do not necessarily know all the possibilities offered in the workforce,” stated Katie Shorey, president of Startup Maine and a Junior Achievement volunteer. “They want to hear about what we do and how we got there. For folks in the startup space, this is an simple way to give back.”

Six hundred volunteers lead Junior Achievement of Maine applications in 140 Maine schools, reaching close to 12,000 K-12 students from Kittery to Fort Kent.

“A lot of the perform that Junior Achievement does is to inspire youngsters to be financially literate, profession-prepared entrepreneurial thinkers,” stated President Michelle Anderson. “We’re a bridge among education and workforce so youngsters can see the relevance of their education and what they could be capable to do in the future.”

Junior Achievement offers curriculum and coaching, and volunteers bring the system to life with stories of their profession experiences and lessons discovered.

“Rarely do students want to speak about what I do,” stated Tom Morgan, owner of Breakthrough Sales Options. “They want to hear about why I do what I do and how I chose to get there. So a lot of students are interested in the entrepreneurial journey and beginning their personal organization. They ask a lot of concerns.”

Ryan Kelley, a bankruptcy lawyer with Pierce Atwood, leads monetary literacy classes at middle and higher schools. “A lot of other monetary literacy programming begins in higher college or college,” he stated. “But financial ideas can and really should be taught at earlier stages.”

Morgan and Kelley are volunteering with Junior of Achievement of Maine’s Titan Challenge, a startup simulation game played by 300 students across seven places on April five. Students take their business by way of a series of contests and games that represent 3 years of organization.

“When I was mentoring in a class in Westbrook, a student decided to make all their item in the very first quarter,” Morgan stated. “They had a year’s worth of inventory. But then in the second quarter, they had to lay off all their production workers and their corporate social duty score went in the tank. These students are studying that the options they make in operating their personal organization have impacts not only on the organization but on the workers and neighborhood and the state.”

Amy Paradysz is a freelance writer and photographer primarily based in Scarborough. She can be reached at [email protected]

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