WELCOME to JA BIZ TOWN!! --- I was taken back by this place!

I was able to volunteer on Kaden's end of the year field trip. It was inspiring and I found my self wishing that every state had something like this to offer. JA Biz town is owned by a wealthy business owner who lives in Clinton. Schools from all around travel to this facility to provide their students a small taste of reality. The teachers spend weeks preparing the students for the experience. Economics, Math, Social Studies are just a few subjects used to teach the students how to run a town. The children elected their own town representatives. Mayor, city officials, business owners, postal service workers, financial representatives and supply and delivery, to name a few. They ran this place brilliantly! I was amazed by the team work and informed decisions they made. For an entire day, this place was a bustle with children who looked and acted as though this was their town. They are given jobs, they get paid and they go to the bank to cash their checks. They write checks out to the businesses to buy food and goods, they balance their check books and just like adults, return to their jobs to do it all again....

Each business elects CEO's and CFO's. At the beginning of the day, they go to the Investment Group and take out loans to operate. It is then their job to go back to their place of operation and formulate a plan with their peers on how to repay the debt. There are goods in each place and they set the prices, sell them to the community and do ALL the checks and balances!....AND!!!! Get this, on actual computers with a special JA Biz Town program!!! When the day was coming to a close, the children whom were elected, reviewed their paperwork, completed their data input, collected their funds and made deposits at the bank.

The day was invaluable... It was exciting. I can not say enough good things about this program and am very grateful that Kaden was able to participate..... Had life not worked out the way that it did at the time, I wouldn't have been able to share in this experience with my son. ~Everything happens for a reason~