Rosendin Electric, Inc. employees in San Jose, California took time out of their very busy schedules to "connect with" students at Noble Elementary School, Berryessa School District in San Jose. As a bonus, the volunteers experienced a fun way of team building, and some recalled their own youthful Junior Achievement days.
Key to Rosendin's consistent success as one of the top ten electrical contractors in the United States is that the company has built their organization upon their engineering expertise, financial stability, team focus and commitment to undertake any project regardless of complexity and magnitude. Extending Rosendin's value of commitment to the community, the Charitable Contribution Committee responded to the request for volunteers sent by Junior Achievement of Silicon Valley and Monterey Bay. "We are big on education and community involvement. JA in a Day provided us with an opportunity to do both," says Lisa Vere, Quality Manager of Rosendin Electric. "We also felt this would be a good team building activity within our own company," she adds.
On May 29, 2002, twenty Rosendin Electric employees became elementary school teachers for an entire day at Noble Elementary in the Berryessa School District. The Junior Achievement "JA in a Day" program enables students to experience how their communities and local businesses operate as well as discover various jobs and careers through examples from each volunteer's profession. Todd Mazza, Project Manager, always wanted to tutor young students. "I personally feel that Junior Achievement has put together a great program for the novice instructor. It had enough detail in the curriculum to give me the confidence I needed to teach the students, but built in plenty of room for me to be able to enhance the program with my own personal experience."
A few of the volunteers recalled their own memorable Junior Achievement experience while in school. Sheri Wulczynski, Electrical Design Engineer, attended Branham High School where JA assigned volunteers to mentor students with various projects. "I had fond memories of meeting other students from other high schools and working with mentors who volunteered their time to our project. That positive experience is what prompted me to get involved when 'JA in a Day' was introduced to our company."
Although Rosendin employees are busy, they have set aside valuable time to give back to their community via opportunities provided through the company's Charitable Contribution Committee. The committee regularly receives many requests to donate and support local organizations. When Junior Achievement sent a letter requesting for volunteers to participate in the JA in a Day program, they jumped at the idea. The Rosendin employee group all agreed that it was such a great experience that they immediately signed up with Junior Achievement of Silicon Valley and Monterey Bay to teach another "JA in a Day" again next school year. Making local economic education impact one classroom at a time. For more information and to volunteer-as a company or individual, visithttp://www.jascc.org or call 408-988-8915.
Junior Achievement of Santa Clara County is the premier K - 12 local economic education organization, serving Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Benito and Santa Clara Counties. Globally, Junior Achievement is the largest and fastest-growing nonprofit economic education organization, annually teaching over 4 million elementary, middle school and high school students in 106 countries. Junior Achievement's mission is for students to be inspired and educated by volunteer role models, who help these youth succeed by linking education to the world of work. Junior Achievement's unique approach to accomplish its mission is that local business organizations' volunteers combine their work experience with up-to-date Junior Achievement-developed courses to teach students how to apply basic skills and critical thinking to solve complex problems in the "real world." Armed with this fundamental business and community understanding, almost 27,000 students annually, in every school grade, learn to become active contributors to the Silicon Valley and Monterey Bay economy. Junior Achievement of Santa Clara County:
