News : Junior Achievement of Eastern Iowa Receives Grant from Wells Fargo Foundation

Junior Achievement of Eastern Iowa today announced it has received $92,000 from the Wells Fargo Foundation to support local youth financial literacy programs.

The grant will support hands-on learning programs that teach students foundational money management skills like earning, saving, budgeting, spending wisely, and investing, in addition to sponsoring the organization's capstone program, JA BizTown® Mobile.

Launched in spring 2023, JA BizTown® Mobile provides school districts access to an immersive financial literacy and work and career readiness educational program that allows students to learn about the circular flow of the economy by assuming roles in businesses found in a simulated pop-up mobile economy.

Junior Achievement of Eastern Iowa is the first of the more than 100 Junior Achievement offices throughout the United States to offer JA BizTown® in a mobile format that brings the mobile city infrastructure to local schools to reduce barriers of transportation.

"As the Bank of Doing, we want to find ways to help people build savings and reduce debt, and that aligns perfectly with the mission of Junior of Achievement," said Laura Howe, branch banking region executive for Wells Fargo. "Junior Achievement of Eastern Iowa has pioneered a new financial education program that is showing promising results."

More than 1,600 Eastern Iowa students in grades fifth and sixth have participated in JA BizTown® Mobile since its launch. In addition to its most recent grant, Wells Fargo joined MidAmerican Energy to fund the creation of JA BizTown® Mobile last year.

"JA BizTown is an immersive learning experience that gives students the opportunity to learn by doing, instead of just listening. During JA BizTown, students can take their classroom learning into a controlled environment where they can make mistakes, learn, and interact with volunteers to see how their 'first day on the job' is relatable to real-world experiences they may have in years to come," said Katie

Langrehr, experiential learning director for Junior Achievement of Eastern Iowa. "By mobilizing this experience, Junior Achievement of Eastern Iowa has made it accessible to all students within our footprint, and it allows us to pull from different volunteer pools that truly reflect the students in each of our areas. It is important that we are demonstrating to future generations, early and often, the importance of the circular flow of the economy, and that we are preparing them for the world of work that they will enter."

About Junior Achievement of Eastern Iowa (JAEI)

Junior Achievement of Eastern Iowa envisions a world in which young people have the skillset and mindset to build thriving communities. By advocating for experiential learning in every school in the world, and by nurturing partnerships with schools and other like-minded organizations, we envision a world in which no young person is left behind.

JAEI is dedicated to inspiring and preparing young people to succeed in the global economy through work readiness, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy educational programs. JAEI's programs are delivered by 1,384 local volunteers that can provide students with real-world examples of how obstacles can be overcome, and success achieved. JAEI provides its programs to 45,257 students throughout Eastern Iowa which includes Benton, Black Hawk, Bremer, Buchanan, Butler, Cerro Gordo, Chickasaw, Fayette, Delaware, Grundy, Iowa, Johnson, Jones, Linn, and Tama counties. For more information, visit www.JAEasternIowa.org.