Key Club members traveled to College Street Elementary School to teach the Junior Achievement program to third grade students on November 27. This is the second year Key Club has volunteered to teach Junior Achievement.

“Our officers agreed to help [with the program] and that’s how it started,” Key Club sponsor Kim Saunders said. “We try to maintain Key Club as a student led organization, so our officers are key in the decision-making of what we participate in as a club.”   

Junior Achievement institutes a background of basic knowledge students will need growing up. Topics taught typically revolve around economy, but include working with infrastructures of cities, business development and choosing a career path.

“Junior Achievement is a program to help young children with economic success when they grow up,” Key Club vice president Brayden Gill said. “[The program] teaches kids important lessons about finances, hard work and managing businesses. It trains students to enter the workforce ready and smart.”

To volunteer for Junior Achievement, it takes more than signing a name on a sign-up sheet. Student teachers train with a Junior Achievement representative to make sure that they have a working knowledge of what they will be teaching.

“Junior Achievement training allows for the students who will be teaching to be able to understand what the lesson plan is and why it is needed to make sure that the students will get the most out of it,” Key Club activities coordinator Ashlyn Ellgass said. “It also allows for us to prepare ourselves for being in a room full of energetic third graders.”

The program is slowly becoming implemented in the Lindale school district. Last year, volunteers taught fourth graders, and this year, sixth and third graders are being taught.

“Key Club members have a very different service opportunity because we will be teaching during a school day to a room full of students,” Ellgass said. “This is an opportunity that not many student have.”