For more information:
Wendy Walleigh
408-988-8915 x208
wwalleigh@jascc.org
On Friday, Oct. 25, at Anne Darling Elementary School in San Jose, over 30 SBC Pac Bell volunteers will take over classrooms for the day using Junior Achievement economic education programs. These business role models will teach students the principles of free enterprise so that they understand business and economics, are workforce-ready, and are prepared to be successful, contributing citizens in our community. In other words, SBC is building the "student infrastructure" to create a solid, future economy for Silicon Valley.
The teachers, students, and SBC volunteers will first be inspired by a brief talk from local Assemblywoman Elaine Alquist, an active proponent of education and Chair of the Assembly's Higher Education Committee. She will also tour the school and see Junior Achievement programs in action along with Laura Lam, representing San Jose Council Member Cindy Chavez. Junior Achievement of Silicon Valley & Monterey Bay is pleased to have such strong support from local government as well as businesses such as SBC Pacific Bell. Through our joint efforts, volunteers use their experience and knowledge to help students become workforce-ready by applying critical thinking and school skills to solving real-world problems. As a result, approximately 27,500 children from this past year will impact Silicon Valley and Monterey Bay communities as successful individuals, workers and consumers.
SBC Pac Bell is actively involved in the community, and particularly education, encouraging partnerships and employee participation with organizations like Junior Achievement across its region. For example, their internal employee organization of Telephone Pioneers has been focused on building employee involvement in the community for almost 100 years. Their activities include creating and maintaining onsite playground maps and distributing backpacks to Washington Elementary School, near Biblioteca Latinoamerica in downtown SJ.
And this is the second year that Anne Darling Elementary School, with a significant number of its 800 students being ESL (English as Second Language) and Hispanic-speaking, has benefited from SBC and Junior Achievement. Particularly with a number of Spanish-speaking employees, SBC is helping the school tackle the real challenges of both engaging the students' interest and improving test scores. "The Anne Darling students have real needs and face real challenges, so that's why SBC wants to connect with them. These students need to see businesses come in to not only teach Junior Achievement programs, but also give the secondary message that the kids and the school are important and community cares about them," according to Leon Beauchman, Director of External Affairs at SBC Pacific Bell.
Junior Achievement is working with SBC Pacific Bell to get more employees involved and play a role, especially as volunteers, at local schools like Anne Darling. SBC Pac Bell knows that business involvement in the community and Junior Achievement is an investment in the future of Silicon Valley and Monterey Bay.
Junior Achievement of Silicon Valley & Monterey Bay is the premier K - 12 local economic education organization. Globally, Junior Achievement is the largest and fastest-growing nonprofit economic education organization, annually teaching 6 million elementary, middle school and high school students in over 110 countries. Junior Achievement's mission is to ensure that every child in America has a fundamental understanding of the free enterprise system. Since 1953, Junior Achievement has partnered with businesses, communities and schools from Silicon Valley to Monterey Bay to teach young people the principles of free enterprise so that they understand business and economics and are workforce-ready. Only Junior Achievement teaches K - 12th grade students about the relevance of school to their future success by using community and business role models to bring our classroom programs to life. In multiple classroom visits, these volunteers use their experience and knowledge to help students become workforce-ready by applying critical thinking and school skills to solving real-world problems. As a result, approximately 27,500 children from this past year will impact Silicon Valley and Monterey Bay communities as successful individuals, workers and consumers. Junior Achievement of Silicon Valley & Monterey Bay: Impacting local economic education one classroom at a time. For more information and to get involved, visit http://www.jascc.org or call 408-988-8915.
