High-Tech JA Finance Park to Teach Teens Financial Literacy Skills for Life

Junior Achievement in partnership with the Redmond Chamber of Commerce is hosting a Launch Party and Ribbon Cutting ceremony to welcome JA Finance Park to Central Oregon on April 25 at the Business Expo.

Junior Achievement of Oregon and SW Washington announce its newest innovative educational program connecting classroom learning to the real world.  JA Finance Park is a groundbreaking financial literacy program designed for middle and high school students that will help meet core financial literacy standards updated recently by the Oregon Board of Education. The program includes teacher-led classroom instruction and culminates with a four-and-a-half hour interactive simulation.  JA Finance Park is mobile and will tour Oregon and SW Washington eventually reaching 10,000 students annually.

The JA Finance Park simulation space is constructed as an 8,000 square foot business park, with mini-businesses that correlate to 16 household budget lines.  During the simulation, students assume fictional adult roles and make realistic budgeting decisions about everything from housing, transportation and childcare to groceries, health care and retirement savings. This is combined with use of a custom-designed, state-of-the-art app run on iPads which enables students to manage their budget decisions and future goals in a paperless environment.  JA Finance Park is a natural progression for students who have been to JA BizTown, a business simulation for 5^th and 6^th graders that opened in 2007 at Junior Achievement’s Portland facility.

According to Roy Hutchinson, partner, Deloitte Tax LLP and chair of the Board of Junior Achievement of Oregon and SW Washington, JA Finance Park has been made possible thanks to major contributions totaling over $800,000 from area businesses and foundations, including a lead gift from KeyBank that provided early momentum for the funding campaign. KeyBank will be represented in the JA Finance Park simulation space with a mini branch where participating students will go to make simulated home and car payments. “The response has been exceptional. We reached our fundraising goal in 18 months and we are thrilled to be ready to unveil the actual product,” Hutchinson said.

Other major corporate donors to the project include US Bank, Fred Meyer, the Northwest Credit Union Association, AAA, Comcast, The Standard, Pacific Power and Knowledge Universe.  The following foundations also provided major grant support: the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, the Meyer Memorial Trust, the Collins Foundation, the Swigert Family Foundation, the Firstenburg Family Foundation, the Randall Charitable Trust, the Hoover Foundation and the Nutter Foundation.

This local version of JA Finance Park is unique. Unlike similar JA Finance Park programs in operation elsewhere in the United States, this one is portable, and it is virtually paperless, thanks to the iPad application. Rather than students having to come to a regional center to participate in the program, the set-up will travel community to community. In its inaugural tour this spring, the program will make stops in Eugene, Medford, Redmond and Klamath Falls in addition to Portland. Junior Achievement of Oregon and SW Washington president John Hancock explained, “We intend that schools and students across the region to have access to this program. The matter of financial literacy is just too important to leave anyone out. Designing the program to be mobile was the right way to go.”

The program elements are transported by truck and assembled in a structure similar to a high-end trade show exhibit. Occupying approximately 8,000 square feet, the program will set-up in fairgrounds buildings, convention centers and large gyms. It is comprised of 16 computerized ‘storefront’ kiosks that correlate to 16 household budget lines. Students receive the JA Finance Park curriculum in the classroom in the days and weeks before testing their knowledge in the simulated environment.

According to Hancock, “We have long regarded financial literacy as an essential skill to succeed in life.  JA Finance Park elevates our ability to address this topic and provides a turnkey solution for schools that are looking for a fun, engaging and effective program for students.”

More information is available on the JA of Oregon and SW Washington website: www.jaorswwa.org.

Junior Achievement in partnership with the Redmond Chamber of Commerce is hosting a Launch Party and Ribbon Cutting ceremony to

welcome JA Finance Park to Central Oregon on:

April 25, 2013

4:00 to 6:00 pm

 

Location:

Deschutes County Fairgrounds & Expo Center 

North Sister Building

3800 SW Airport Way, Redmond, OR 97756 

The Launch Party will celebrate the culmination of several years of planning and capital fundraising and mark the inception of the JA Finance Park inaugural tour throughout Oregon & SW Washington

Please RSVP to Julie Beeh at  jbeeh@ja-pdx.org.