JA BizTown

For the past ten weeks, Megan has participated in a program that is put on by Junior Achievement. She was in class with other 4th thru 7th graders, all homeschoolers. They basically learn how to run a business, manage a checkbook, etc. About a month ago, she had a job interview and was "hired" as the Health Care Manager at the JA BizTown Wellness Center. Once she received her job placement, the last four class periods were spent with her future co-workers of the Wellness Center learning more specifics about their particular business. Today was the big day, the day when they report to work and run their business.

Here she is doing some paperwork. Her job duties included providing health vouchers for employees of the other JA BizTown businesses and recording that information on her charts (what she's doing in the pic below), issuing insurance cards after performing wellness screenings, and familiarizing the public with healthy living practices. Before the end of the day, she had to collect the health insurance payments from each business.

Assisting a customer.

Taking her job seriously, she performs the wellness screenings.

Grace also had a class today with other 3rd graders, and I volunteered in the Professional Office, where we had eight individual businesses - a CFO, Rental Agent, CPA, Attorney, Insurance Agent, Investment Advisor, Non-Profit Director, and a Property Appraiser. I served only as a "coach" or to answer any questions they had. This is the place where I hung out for the morning.

I was able to take my lunch break when Megan had hers.Before leaving for lunch, however, she had to delegate the responsibilities of her job to her co-workers to ensure the "public's" wellness screenings, etc., were taken care of in her absence. I was impressed (and I admit, I swelled up with pride) as I watched her fulfill her duties.

During her second break, she was able to do some shopping. Her first stop was at the bank to cash her paycheck.

From there, she went to the Savings Officer, who happened to be her friend, Beau, to open up a savings account.

Then she went to the general store and purchased a JA BizTown briefcase. Finally, before returning back to work, she had time to stop by the Professional Office and purchase some shares of stock from the Investment Advisor in my locale.

At the end of the day, she enjoyed showing Grace and Kayla where she worked and demonstrated some of her job duties on them.

She did a great job, and I am really proud of her! It was a wonderful experience and one we'd do again!

~Wee