Junior Achievement of Middle Tennessee

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About Us

What is Junior Achievement (JA)?

JA is the world’s largest organization dedicated to educating students about workforce readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy through experiential, hands-on programs. JA of Middle Tennessee is a registered 501(c)(3) organization.

Junior Achievement programs help prepare young people for the real world by showing them how to generate wealth and effectively manage it, how to create jobs which make their communities more robust, and how to apply entrepreneurial thinking to the workplace. Students put these lessons into action and learn the value of contributing to their communities.

JA’s unique approach allows volunteers from the community to deliver our curriculum while sharing their experiences with students. Embodying the heart of JA, our 2,000 local classroom volunteers transform the key concepts of our lessons into a message that inspires and empowers students to believe in themselves, showing them they can make a difference in the world.

Mission

Junior Achievement of Middle Tennessee seeks to inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy.

Purpose

Junior Achievement will ensure that every child in Middle Tennessee has a fundamental understanding of the free enterprise system.

At JA we believe in...

The boundless potential of young people.
Commitment to the principles of market-based economics and entrepreneurship.
Passion for what we do and honesty, integrity and excellence in how we do it.
Respect for the talents, creativity, perspectives and background of all individuals.
Belief in the power of partnership and collaboration.
Conviction in the educational and motivational impact of relevant, hands-on learning.

JA believes helping young people succeed today will help our communities succeed in the future.

Key Programs

Programs span grades K-12, with age-appropriate curricula designed to teach elementary students about their roles as individuals, workers, and consumers and to prepare middle grade and high school students for key economic and workforce issues they will face. In addition to bringing the free enterprise system to life in the classroom, Junior Achievement programs teach youngsters the importance of staying in school. The organization also offers programs for children who may have difficulty graduating from high school. Trained volunteers from the community teach all Junior Achievement classroom programs at no charge to the public schools.

JA has entered the online world with JA TITAN, a business simulation exercise delivered via the Internet. Visit JA TITAN at http://titan.ja.org.

Visit our Programs page for a full list of program offerings in the Middle Tennessee area.

Finally, Junior Achievement's interdisciplinary experiential learning program, JA BizTown, is an exciting program in which 5th graders operate the businesses of a pretend town for a day.

History

Theodore Vail, president of American Telephone & Telegraph, Horace Moses, president of Strathmore Paper Co., and Senator Murray Crane of Massachusetts founded Junior Achievement in 1919. Its first program, The Company Program, was offered to high school students on an after-school basis. In 1975, the organization entered the classroom with the introduction of Project Business for the middle grades. In the last 24 years, Junior Achievement gradually expanded its activities and broadened its scope to encompass an ever-widening student population.

Locally, business leaders established Junior Achievement of Middle Tennessee in 1957. A few of the Middle Tennessee founders were James V. Blevins, William Earthman, Sam M. Fleming, T. Scott Fillebrown, Oscar B. Hofstetter, Jr., J. E. Moss, Hugh Stallworth, John Tipton, and Albert Werthan.

Some distinguished alumni of Junior Achievement are: U. S. Congressman Bob Clement (D-Tenn.); Frederick A. Deluca, Founder & CEO, Subway; Arte Johnson, actor and Junior Achievement National Board Member; Dan Rather, Anchor and Managing Editor, CBS Evening News; Dr. Donna Shalala, U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services, David E. Hall, former President of TNN and National Board Member, and former Chairman of the Board.

Funding

Junior Achievement receives no federal or state funding, nor is it a United Way Agency. Junior Achievement does, however, have a designation code, 7054, for individual donations given through United Way. Local contributors include more than 200 businesses and foundation grants. We have been able to continue our programs solely based on the financial support of local foundations, companies, individuals and special events that support our purpose, along with dedicated volunteers from the business community who donate their time to serve as classroom consultants.

Thanks

A very special thank you to the Frist Foundation for their generous technology grant awarded to Junior Achievement of Middle Tennessee. With this grant and with the supportive help of SiteMason, a division of Monster Labs, Inc., you are viewing our website. Please visit us often!