Message From The President
To Our Investors, Volunteers and Associates:
Junior Achievement is here to help Utah’s students gain a fundamental understanding of America’s free enterprise system. Working together with educators, professionals, volunteers, and corporate sponsors, we achieve this by offering relevant educational and experience-based programs that inspire young people to realize their potential to be successful in life.
In everything we do, from raising funds to recruiting volunteers to implementing programs, we focus on our goal of positively influencing more young people in our state by teaching them real-world lessons in financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and workforce readiness.
This past year was clearly the best in Junior Achievement’s fifty plus years in Utah. More than 50,000 students were reached by our in-class K-12 programs, and Junior Achievement City (JA City) opened. This mini-municipality was an enormous undertaking requiring a powerful collaboration with the Children’s Museum of Utah. It culminated with the construction of Discovery Gateway at the Gateway Mall where JA City is housed.
In February of 2007, Junior Achievement City’s capstone programming began in local fifth- and eighth-grade classrooms. Following four weeks of in-class training, the students came ready to run JA City for a day. Upon arriving, each group of students, without fail, erupted with joyous cheers and hurrahs at their fist glimpse of the city built just for them. The educational community has responded with high praise, describing JA City as Utah’s “...greatest out-of-class experience for students.”
When we introduce our young people to free market economics, engage them in relevant ways, and positively affect their values and attitudes, our efforts contribute to the high quality of life in Utah. Every step of the way, we must continue impressing students that education relates directly to the their daily success and future lives, emphasizing not just business, economics, and entrepreneurship, but also citizenship, ethics, character and work-related life skills.
To all of our volunteers, teachers, parents, and financial supporters, thank you for helping us expand the implementation of Junior Achievement programs throughout the state. As Dick Prows, a great JA Champion has said, “We must continue to stoke the fire within Utah’s students and open their minds to life’s wonderful possibilities.”
Phillip T. Cofield
President and CEO
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