Both Dawn and I are passionate about financial literacy. We meet clients all the time who need our assistance getting their affairs in order. And while disorganized clients help ensure job security, it’s a shame it’s such a common situation. Especially given we have public education in Canada.
The problem? Financial literacy isn’t taught in the public-school system the way other subjects like science, math, english or social studies are. And so, it takes a non-profit organization like Junior Achievement to fill the gap.
Dawn and I volunteer our time with Junior Achievement to teach students financial literacy skills in the classroom. We literally become the teacher for the day. While there are age specific curriculums developed by Junior Achievement for all ages, we like to teach the grade 9 program.
This program focusses on goal setting, apprenticeship and post secondary options, factors that affect industry & job prospects, interview skills, and budgeting. Because of our experience and the range of people we work with every day, these are topics we know a lot about. As a result, we’re able to share our experience with the students who get a lot of value from of our perspective.
Because we are self-employed, we have the freedom to spend a work
day doing this. It does ‘cost’ us time, but we do it because it’s a very rewarding experience. It’s clear that the students get a lot of value out of the day, and we get inspired by the youthful enthusiasm they show for the information and for our spin on it.
JA is always looking for volunteers, so if you’re ever interested please let us know. We’d be happy to let you ‘job shadow’ us the first time if you want a introduction to what volunteering for JA looks like. And if you’re ready to jump straight in, JA will provide you with the materials and one-on-one training (takes about an hour) to get you stared.