About Us

JA Calendar		About Us: Junior Achievement's purpose is to inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy. WHAT IS JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT? JA (Junior Achievement) is the world’s largest organization dedicated to educating students in grades K-12 about work readiness, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship, through experiential, hands-on programs. PURPOSE JA’s purpose is to inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy. Click here for copy of 2009 Annual Report pdf file

MARKET SERVED

JA of South Central PA covers six counties: York, Cumberland, Franklin, Adams, Perry, and the western half of Dauphin County. (click on map to enlarge)

The market includes 43 school districts and a public enrollment of approximately 175,000 students.

PROGRAM REACH
JA of South Central PA reached over 35,000 students last year in 1,600 classrooms.

Of these, 29,000 students are reached through our K-12 in-class programs. These programs are taught by volunteers in class during the regular school day.

An additional 5,000 students have the opportunity to participate in our experiential learning laboratory, JA BizTown. This program consists of 20 in class lessons of preparation taught by the teacher, followed by a full day of running a life-like city. Volunteers participate in the city as business mentors.

VOLUNTEERS
JA’s 1,400 classroom volunteers and the 1,000 JA BizTown volunteers come from all walks of life and include business people, college students, parents, and retirees. These dedicated individuals are the backbone of the organization.

PROVEN SUCCESS
JA is one of a few global non-profits to use independent, third-party evaluators to gauge the impact of its programs. Since 1993, independent evaluators have conducted studies on JA’s effectiveness. Findings prove that JA has a positive impact in a number of critical areas. These results are available, for free, upon request. Summaries of the findings also are published in the JA Programs section of www.ja.org.

LEADERSHIP
Dante Parrini, COO Glatfelter, is chairman of the JA of South Central PA board of trustees. Tom Russell is president and chief executive officer. The Board of Trustees is the governing body of the organization. Additionally, there are Regional Councils in York and the Greater Harrisburg Area. The Regional Councils serve as liaisons to the communities they serve.

FUNDING
JA of South Central PA operates on a $1 million annual budget; the majority of this funding comes from corporations and foundations.

ORGANIZATION OVERVIEW
JA Worldwide is headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA. The Headquarters office provides strategic direction, leadership, and support to approximately 2,700 employees worldwide. Local volunteer boards of directors comprised of business, education, and civic leaders set the policy and direction for each local office. For information on JA Worldwide you can visit www.ja.org.

Click here for a Fact Sheet on JA

If you would like to download a four-page fact sheet, simply click here and a PDF file will be available for printing or review. Must have Adobe Reader to view.

Students Reached Recent History and Goals:

JA of South Central PA has had a great track record of growth. From 1961 to 2006, there were only a few years where student numbers didn't increase.

The rapid growth however has come in the past decade.

In 1991, we were reaching slightly under 10,000 students. By 2001 we increased to 20,000 students and to 30,000 by 2004.

This past year, over 26,500 students received a JA experience in the classroom, in addition to 5,300 students who came through JA BizTown, for a total of over 35,000 students. Due to the economic recession of 2008-2009, we will not be able to sustain this growth for the current school year. The "Secure a Class" campaign effort was introduced to help financially secure JA programs on a class-by-class basis. Through the outstanding support of our community, we plan to reach approximately 33,000 students. While this is a decline from the number of students who had Junior Achievement last year, this is significantly higher than we had originally budgeted based on the economic forecast.

Benchmarks on JA of South Central PA:

JA Worldwide provides regular comparisons between JA offices. This benchmark process is intended to help measure performance between offices. The benchmarks compare the JA office here with similar size offices based on students reached.

One of the benchmarks used is Market Share. This is the percent of students participating in JA programs as compared to the total public enrollment for the area. JASCPA has consistently out-performed most offices.

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