Inspire Today's Youth for a Brighter Tomorrow

Junior Achievement Classroom Volunteers Needed

Author: Kristi Brown
Corporate Responsibility
Published: Tuesday, 22 Feb 2022

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Image caption: JA Our Community students with classroom volunteer.

Junior Achievement of Eastern Iowa is seeking qualified businessmen and women to serve as classroom mentors. The organization needs volunteers for 155 classes in the Cedar Valley area and 153 classrooms in the Corridor area to help teach students how money works, how education leads to career success, and how to start and run a business. Classroom volunteers can make a life-long difference in the lives of students in as little as an hour a week for five to seven weeks.

“Junior Achievement (JA) takes an “everyone matters” approach in teaching skills to youth. This is important, because showing kids that they have value, that their circumstance in life does not define who they are or who they can be is invaluable,” said Jacob Christenson, CEO of Covenant Family Solutions and JA Board Member. “How much better would the world be — would our community be — if we gave everyone a fair shot at success? It may seem small, but what JA does to equalize the playing field has lifelong impact on the children in our community. Support systems are critical to our community, and I am proud to be a part of Junior Achievement of Eastern Iowa, an organization taking the lead in setting our next generation of community leaders up for success in life — regardless of circumstance. I strongly urge you to volunteer for these programs to ensure our kids know they matter.”

The volunteer utilizes prepared curriculum developed by Junior Achievement USA®. Each lesson within the program comes with a lesson guide that provides the volunteer with what to say, when to incorporate personal experiences or examples to help students connect the content to the real world, when to hand out worksheets, watch videos, and play games. This makes the program materials turnkey, easy to use, and relevant to students. Junior Achievement staff members will meet with volunteers prior to the start of their program to go over classroom expectations and address any questions the volunteer may have.

To sign up to volunteer, individuals can view available classes by visiting: https://engage.ja.org

Individuals that have questions or are interested in learning more about volunteering for the single-day student experiences, please contact Amy Fossum at (319) 862-1100, or by email at afossum@jaeasterniowa.org.