President
Junior Achievement of North Florida
Mission
To ensure that every child has a fundamental understanding of the free enterprise system by educating and inspiring young people to value free enterprise, business and economics to improve the quality of their lives.
Serving Jacksonville
Junior Achievement was founded in 1919 and chartered in Jacksonville in 1963. JA Worldwide is headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colo., and reached 10 million young people last year.
Those served
Of the 20 counties in our JA area, we concentrate primarily on Duval County. We have operations in Tallahassee and are working to open in St. Johns County in the near future. Last year, our 650 volunteers reached 23,427 young people in grades K-12 with professionally prepared and age-appropriate financial literacy materials for each grade.
Biggest challenge
We are constricted on growth in student reach by funding and the number of volunteers we recruit. By national bylaw, no more than 10 percent of our revenue can come from governmental sources and we cannot be a direct United Way agency. Therefore, we rely on funding from the corporate sector and local foundations. Although we reached more than 23,000 young people last year, we left some 3,000 behind because we did not have the additional 120 volunteers to meet teacher requests for our financial education programs.
Biggest satisfaction
I am able to address two of my passions every day: free enterprise and education. It really doesn’t get any better than seeing young minds grasp the concepts of economics and free enterprise that open up an entire new world of possibilities for them. We teach young people something that is otherwise not offered with the intensity we provide. We also show young people that math, reading, history and other classroom subjects are not to be learned, tested and forgotten. Learning is critical to their future. Therefore, we make learning relevant and this is very satisfying and rewarding.
Hometown
Born in Biddeford, Maine. I now live in the Mandarin area of Jacksonville.
First experience with community service
Volunteering with my mother at a church thrift store when I was 6 years old.
Your job before Junior Achievement of North Florida
Steve St. Amand & Associates, lobbying, public relations and political campaigns.
Upcoming events
April 28: The Thompson S. Baker Award luncheon honoring Gary Chartrand, noon, the University of North Florida University Center. Tables are $1,000 to $5,000 with a limited number of individual $75 tickets available.
Contact information
www.jajax.com
[email protected]
398-9944, ext 228