Students from East Longmeadow High School, Putnam Vocational Technical Academy and Agawam High School and an after-school program worked with volunteers to learn how to become entrepreneurs.
SPRINGFIELD - Junior Achievement of Western Massachusetts, in partnership with UPS Foundation, recently completed a financial literacy and entrepreneurship program to benefit area high school students.
For 2014, UPS Foundation provided a $7,200 grant to Junior Achievement of Western Massachusetts to provide between five and eight classes of the curriculum.
Lorin Porth- presented the jewelry product her team designed from pipe cleaners Junior Achievement Be Entrepreneurial focuses on challenging students, through interactive classroom activities, to start their own entrepreneurial venture while still in school.
“The teachers and students thoroughly enjoyed JA Be Entrepreneurial,” said Jennifer Connolly, president of JA of Western Massachusetts. “because of the UPS Foundation’s commitment to JA and entrepreneurship nearly 100 area high school students now have the tools to start planning their own business!”
Maegan Diefenderfer, Lily DeStephano, Victoria Rivera, and Sara Cafaro are shown here presenting their product Students from East Longmeadow High School, Putnam Vocational Technical Academy and Agawam High School and an after-school program worked with volunteers to learn how to become entrepreneurs.
When asked what they learned from participating in the JA Be Entrepreneurial program, a student from Putnam Vocational Technical Academy said, “JA Be Entrepreneurial showed me the value of becoming an entrepreneur at any age. You can be anything you want to be if you just try.”
At East Longmeadow High, students in Dawn Quercia’s entrepreneurship class are starting their own student companies and JA Be Entrepreneurial taught them about “weighing ethical responsibilities and income and knowing the inner workings of a company.”
Peter DeStephano created a playhouse as a product from pipe cleaners In the after-school JA program because of their experience in JA Be Entrepreneurial, three students from Springfield’s High School of Science and Technology have decided to form their own business, Springfield Charms, to sell charm bracelets featuring graduation years, Project Purple Ribbons and a charm they designed to call attention to the need to end violence. The charm is a circle charm engraved with a hand and the words “Stop The Violence.”
The company’s mission “To inspire positive change in Springfield through youth entrepreneurship” ties directly to the lessons they learned from JA Be Entrepreneurial.
Junior Achievement programs empower students to make a connection between what they learn in school and how it can be applied in the real world – enhancing the relevance of their classroom learning and increasing their understanding of the value of staying in school.
Each year JA reaches more than 10 million students worldwide and helps to develop successful financial management habits, empowering them to explore the potential of becoming an entrepreneur and providing them with the skills necessary to succeed in a global workforce. Locally, Junior Achievement of Western Massachusetts reaches nearly 10,000 students.