Wish List: Junior Achievement needs volunteers, money, space

Megan Phillips was a Kennewick fifth-grader when a banker volunteering for Junior Achievement told her class what makes a good employee — a good attitude and dressing professionally.

“Those were all things that really stuck with me,” said Phillips, now an environmental safety and health specialist with Hanford contractor Bechtel National.

Now Phillips volunteers for the youth organization that set her on her career path.

She and other Junior Achievement officials said they need more support in the Tri-Cities to reach their goals of developing an interest in a future career, understanding how to manage money and learning how to start a business.

“We’re trying to get a plan for these kids,” said Susan Fillafer, director of the organization’s southeast Washington region.

Junior Achievement’s Kennewick office currently covers 23 school districts stretching east to west from the Lower Yakima Valley to the Idaho-Washington border.

About 400 volunteers visit classrooms, mostly in the fifth- through eighth-grades, and last school year spoke with some 11,000 students.

The organization has begun collaborating with other groups, such as the Boys & Girls Clubs of Benton & Franklin Counties, the Mid-Columbia STEM Network and high school career and technical education programs to reach more students.

But Junior Achievement needs 100 more volunteers to reach the thousands more students called for in its goals, Fillafer said. Volunteers are specifically needed to help reach students in areas where there’s little exposure to jobs in the sciences, engineering and business.

“Volunteers have an opportunity to inspire students in a way their parents can’t,” Fillafer said.

A lot of the local chapter’s $450,000 annual budget goes toward recruiting and training volunteers to work in classrooms.

Financial contributions help further those efforts and in-kind donations of office supplies can mean more money can go toward getting volunteers with kids, Fillafer said.

New office space also is needed. The regional office’s five staff members currently work in a 370-square-foot trailer provided by the Kennewick School District and a larger space is needed, though it would have to be either donated or severely discounted, Fillafer said.

Despite the hurdles and challenges in reaching as many kids as possible, those with Junior Achievement said they are seeing kids expand their idea of the future through their programs.

“If we can plant this seed while they’re young, these are going to be our future engineers,” said Phillips.

This story was originally published December 26, 2014 at 10:00 PM with the headline "Wish List: Junior Achievement needs volunteers, money, space."