About Our Office

If you would like to volunteer, please click on the link and fill out our 
Volunteer Participation Form.

Since 1919, JA has inspired kids to achieve. We believe in using hands-on experiences to help our kids understand the economics of life. In partnership with business and educators, Junior Acheivement brings the real world to students, opening their minds to their potential. 

JA is the world’s largest and fastest-growing organization dedicated to educating young people about business, economics, and free enterprise.  Through age-appropriate curricula, JA programs begin at the elementary school level, teaching children how they can impact the world around them as individuals, workers, and consumers.  JA programs continue through the middle and high school grades, preparing students for additional key economic and workforce issues they will face in the future.  Today JA reaches more than 4 million students  in 108 countries worldwide.

JA is a volunteer driven, not-for-profit organization. This year more than 20,000 volunteers will teach JA programs. These volunteers use their personal experiences to make the JA curricula practical and realistic. Providing children with positive adult role models, who illustrate ways to build self-confidence, develop skills and find avenues of success in our free enterprise system, is a hallmark of JA. 


A 1994-95 study on JA’s educational impact by Western Institute of Research and Evaluation found that at each grade level, elementary school JA students had a far greater comprehension of economic principles than a comparison group of students.  Among 6^th graders, JA students scored 27% higher than non-participants in basic economic understanding.  On the high school level, a 1992 study by Formative Evaluation Research Association found that JA students significantly surpassed their peers in the Test for Economic Literacy. 

JA of Southern California serves ten counties of Los Angeles, Kern, King, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare, and Ventura.  Seventy one percent of our participating students are minorities.