Junior Achievement of Middle Tennessee

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About Us

What is Junior Achievement (JA)?

It is the world's largest and fastest growing non-profit organization dedicated to educating young people about business, economics, and free enterprise. Classroom volunteers teach JA's programs in both the United States and in nearly 100 countries worldwide. For more information, visit our national web site at www.ja.org.

Purpose

Junior Achievement of Middle Tennessee seeks to inspire and prepare children to dream about their future, develop relevant skills and pursue attainable goals.

Mission

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

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 Achieveement 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 new website. Please visit us often!