St. Margaret’s was presented with the opportunity of bringing Junior Achievement’s popular “JA in a Day” program to our classrooms but your helps is needed to pull this off! If unfamiliar with the program, JA in a Day consolidates the entire Junior Achievement Program for each grade (K through 8) into one 4.5-hour lesson that can be completed in a classroom day, instead of monthly visits by volunteers throughout the school year. This makes the program an easy one-time commitment for volunteers and less disruptive to classroom schedules.
The program teaches children about the economy, personal financial management, entrepreneurship and business (finance, accounting, marketing and management), using fun, interactive lessons and activities that are scaled based on age/grade. The idea is to give children a flavor for these concepts, not to master them, to generate interest and personal exploration in the future.
If we receive enough volunteers, the event will occur on May 5th, 2026, to coincide with Teacher Appreciation Day. While teachers will still be present, they would receive a break for most of the day as volunteers “take over” the classroom and instruct students using JA’s pre-packaged program, guidebooks and materials for each grade. If we can get 36 volunteers to sign up, Junior Achievement has committed to providing materials for all 18 SMOS classrooms (2 volunteers partner in each classroom). The long-term thought would be to make this an annual event allowing students to progress through each grade level of the program.
Attached please find some information and statistics related to Junior Achievement’s program. If you are interested in volunteering, please complete this brief survey at the following link.
More details about Junior Achievement may be found on the attached one-pager below.
