Junior Achievement creates new board in Aroostook

13 years ago
By Scott Mitchell Johnson
Staff Writer

PRESQUE ISLE — Junior Achievement of Maine, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating students in grades K-12 about entrepreneurship, work readiness and financial literacy through the help of volunteers, has announced the creation of a new Junior Achievement area board in Aroostook Country.

The board plans to introduce Junior Achievement programs to middle school students focusing on personal finance, career exploration and the economic benefits of staying in school.

“The whole concept of Junior Achievement is to bring business mentors in — people from the private sector and the business community — to work with kids on everything from work readiness, career development and financial literacy,” said Marcus Barresi of Barresi Financial, Inc., board chair. “It’s a way for people from outside to come in and work with students so kids can put it all together … what they’re being told at home, what their teachers are telling them and what’s out there in the real world.

“What we do as business mentors is talk about what we do in each of our careers and how everything all ties together,” he said. “We try to talk to kids in terms of knowing what they’re good at so they can be in a career that can make them successful and happy.”

A pilot program was held in March at Presque Isle Middle School that was met with rave reviews.

“JA at Presque Isle Middle School was a huge hit,” said Principal Anne Blanchard. “Our eighth-grade students and teachers are still talking about that dynamic day. It is rare that you have a ‘universal thumbs up’ among eighth-grade students, but such was the case with JA! The topics and skills shared with our kids were relevant to them now, which made the learning authentic, engaging and fun, too.”

Barresi said the pilot program — JA Economics for Success — explores personal finance and students’ education and career options based on their skills, interests and values. It also demonstrates the economic benefits of staying in school.

“We had six business mentors come in and teach six one-hour classes,” he said. “It went very well; we had more than 120 kids in the program. Prior to that, we did the JA Titan program at Presque Isle High School, which introduces critical economics and management decisions through an interactive simulation. It’s an online Skype business simulation program with other high schools in the state. Next year, we want to expand that.”

Using the business simulation, mainetitan.org, Junior Achievement of Maine designs a daylong business strategy competition for high school students. The competition is designed to unleash creativity, test leadership and demonstrate the competitive nature of our free enterprise system in a global marketplace. The Titan Challenge will be held Feb. 15, 2012 at the University of Maine at Presque Isle.

After realizing the success of the pilot program, an Aroostook County board has been created. Vice chairs are Mark Wilcox from Dead River Co. and Dan Hotham, who for many years taught communication classes and instructed/directed the first-year seminar at Northern Maine Community College.

“Our goal is to expand the eighth-grade program to some other area middle schools, and we also want to expand the Titan program to other high schools in the area,” said Barresi. “The reason we think this is so important is that a lot of the schools don’t have business departments anymore; they’ve scaled down, so the kinds of things Junior Achievement does in the curriculum can really fill that void.”

The JA program will continue at PIMS, and Barresi said he’s already received a request from Hodgdon High School.

Though Junior Achievement has programs for students in grades K-12, Barresi said eighth-graders are in their formative years when it comes to starting to plan their futures.

“Because we’re just starting out, we felt the most impact we can have is by really concentrating on eighth-graders to get them in the right mindset before they start high school so they’re making better decisions earlier in their school career so they’re more prepared for making college and career decisions,” he said. “We feel we can make a lot of progress there.”

In early fall, the board will schedule dates with local schools that are interested in the JA program.

“This year we’re trying to build our board, build our volunteer base and expand the JA reach beyond Presque Isle,” said Barresi. “We’re hoping to have volunteers from the whole county. In 2012-13, Mark Wilcox will be the new chair and hopefully we’ll have a good base of volunteers and board people to help us move forward.

“Our long-term goals are to have Junior Achievement in every school district in The County,” he said, “and be utilized whatever way each school district would want.”

Those wishing to become a JA volunteer will be asked to complete an information form and attend a brief training or complete an online training. For more information, e-mail Barresi at mbarresi@barresibenefits.com, Wilcox at mark.wilcox@deadriver.com or Hotham at ndhotham@gmail.com. Additional information is available by logging onto at www.jamaine.org.

JA is the world’s largest organization dedicated to inspiring and preparing young people to succeed in a global economy. Junior Achievement of Maine will reach close to 9,000 students throughout the state this year.