Financial foundations: Junior Achievement program brings opportunity, fun for local students

Financial literacy might not sound like the most exciting subject, but for Becki Arends with Junior Achievement, it's a mission to improve the lives of thousands of children who might not otherwise learn to be financially savvy.

Arends, who serves as the district manager for Southeast Missouri in the greater St. Louis region, said there's a wide range of programs and skills taught by volunteers at no cost to the schools.

More than 35 schools between Perryville, Missouri, and the Bootheel participate, Arends said, and last year, they served about 7,000 students. This year, they're hoping to top 8,000.

The program starts out more generalized for the kindergarten through fifth-grade students, with fundamental ideas about how money and credit work. Then starting in sixth grade, programs hone in for more specific training in areas including entrepreneurship, career research and readiness and budgeting.

High-school students can have opportunities like job shadowing, personal finance modeling and even creating their own business from the ground up.

Beyond the subjects taught, Arends said, students also get concrete examples of issues that really happen in businesses they've likely seen in their own communities.

Volunteers who come in to teach can be anyone, Arends said, and several are business leaders who come in for one 45-minute session per week for five weeks.

All students attend, Arends said. "It's a push-in, not a pull-out," she said.

"Students hear a different voice, see a different face, have something to look forward to," she added.

But it isn't like volunteers are just dropped in without materials, Arends said.

Junior Achievement is an international program, she said, and they prepare a kit for every unit, which includes materials for an entire classroom of students.

A guidebook gives the classroom leader discussion points, illustrations, a script to follow and flexibility to include their own viewpoints.

"It's very user friendly," she said.

The kits try to incorporate technology wherever applicable, Arends said, especially in schools with a 1-to-1 program.

Every three to four years, Arends said, Junior Achievement is updating graphics, technology, language, so it's not outdated.

In this district, she said, the cost per student is about $20. That's significantly lower than the national average of about $32 to $35 per student, she said, and a lot of credit for that goes toward volunteers who recycle materials from year to year so the local chapter doesn't need to buy all brand-new.

Arends said the program is great not only for improving financial literacy, but also because it offers all kinds of side benefits.

A 2016 national study completed by a third party said Junior Achievement alumni had a 93 percent high-school diploma or GED rate, compared with a nationwide graduation rate of less than 85 percent.

Alumni also have upward mobility, Arends said.

This program can show students that, even if they start out in a lower income bracket, they do have other opportunities, she said.

"The overall goal is to help prepare students to participate in a global economy, and to be confident in and own their own financial success," she said.

Finances touch every aspect of a student's life, Arends said.

Showing a student how their education, skills and values intersect and inform their education path toward their career paths is vital to their motivation, she added.

A program with high-school students from Cape Girardeau and Jackson will partner them with mentors at AT&T in Cape Girardeau, Arends said.

It will help students see how to write resumes and how a business physically operates, she added, which is really valuable.

Another component will address texting and driving, she said.

The Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce is also working with Junior Achievement to help students develop soft skills, Arends said.

A student may be technologically savvy, she said, but being able to get along with their coworkers is a different matter.

"There's a lot of potential with Junior Achievement," she said, "and it doesn't cost the schools anything."

And for the business community, it's helping to bring up future employees.

For more information about Junior Achievement, check out juniorachievement.org.

mniederkorn@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3630