Gary Greene, a Mission Support Alliance security manager and a Junior Achievement volunteer, gives a JA lesson in Diane Peters fifth grade classroom at Marcus Whitman Elementary School in Richland. Greene has been a JA volunteer for more than 15 years.
For five weeks each fall, Gary Greene steps out of his office at Mission Support Alliance and into another world — one with few suits and ties, and far more enthusiastic energy than an office building offers.
Greene, MSA’s manager of technical security, looks forward to his weekly forays into the netherworlds of the area’s fifth-grade classrooms.
For more than 15 years, Greene has volunteered for Junior Achievement as a classroom instructor. As such, he courageously enters elementary classrooms and, using the Junior Achievement curriculum, helps the young students learn about the ways of the business world, from supply and demand, to distribution chains, to profit and loss and financial security.
“We talk about how competition plays into business and how we are affected by other parts of the world,” said Greene.
Greene is just one of the many volunteers that Junior Achievement relies on to share their working-world experiences with area students. They give students hands-on business and economics lessons that can be used in life, help them prepare to enter the workforce and teach the students financial literacy and about the importance of staying in school.
“During the 2011-2012 school year, we’ll have approximately 360 volunteers in more than 360 classrooms throughout the Tri-Cities and Walla Walla,” said Connie Hache, Junior Achievement’s regional manager.
The program was launched in the Tri-Cities in 1988, initially serving about 330 students. Now it has grown to encompass Walla Walla and more than 8,700 students receive Junior Achievement training in the classroom.
In the elementary school, volunteers like Greene, visit participating classrooms five times per year. In middle school and high school, there are eight sessions each year.
At each grade level, volunteers have a briefcase full of posters, workbooks, lesson plans, games and stickers — everything they need to reach the students and be effective, Hache said.
But one of the most important things they bring into the classroom is their working world experience.
The program encourages the volunteers to share their own business-world experiences, their education and to talk to the kids about how they got where they are, Hache said.
The students aren’t the only beneficiaries of the program — the volunteers also have a vast amount to gain from the experience.
“I enjoy giving something back,” said Greene. “But it’s really a reality check. You get in here and realize how hard the teachers work.”
It also gives him the chance to work with the young people and — hopefully — make a positive impact.
“I really want to help them make good decisions,” Greene said.
Jenn Skinner, another Junior Achievement volunteer who works for Mission Support Alliance, said the experience is wonderful and has helped her grow as a person.
“Being able to impact these kids and make them understand the importance of community, the economy and making the right decisions is the best feeling in the world,” Skinner said.
Rae Weil went from being a Junior Achievement student in high school to becoming a volunteer as an adult. Weil said she participated in Junior Achievement in her junior and senior years of high school. The experience is ingrained in her memory.
“Our project was to run a two-hour radio show,” she said. “We had to produce the show, sell air time, manage the books and basically run the show like a business.”
Weil, of Mission Support Alliance, said the project was a great learning experience about how a business is run and some of the challenges that are out there.
Hache said Junior Achievement is especially grateful for organizations, like Mission Support Alliance, that allow their employees to take time from their work day to volunteer with the organization. The businesses the support JA also get something in return, Hache added.
“It’s a way for employers to create value, passion and purpose in their employees, despite current economic times,” she said.
In addition, in doing the JA presentations and working in the classrooms, employees build and polish their own presentation and public speaking skills, making them more valuable to the company.
And they often discover joy in the experience, Hache added.
“JA volunteers are often pleasantly surprised how much fun and how personally rewarding it can be when they see the ‘light bulb’ light up in a student’s face,” she said.
For more information about Junior Achievement or becoming a JA volunteer, go to http://tri-cities.ja.org.
by Mary Hopkin
Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business
