Welcome everyone to Midday Magazine for this January 10th, 2024.
330 on the clock and you have your host James J. Mailoff here.
I am joined by our great friend Kim Shields from Encourage.
Kim, good to see you.
Great to see you. Thanks for having me.
Thanks for being here and thanks for bringing a new friend.
We've got Joseph Luther with us.
Joseph is from Junior Achievement.
We're going to talk more with him in a moment.
But Joseph, thanks for being with us.
Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
Appreciate the time, man.
Kim, if you don't mind at first,
I'd like to talk a little bit with you about Encourage
and the community foundation support over the years.
Absolutely. Thank you.
So to follow up on our conversation that we had in December,
we talked about launching a $30,000 by 330 matching campaign.
And this opportunity has been presented to us by one of our incredible donors,
an anonymous donor, who really wanted to support,
encourage, and our work in the community.
As listeners may recall, we kind of talked about the different funds
and where they're designated or not designated.
So this campaign actually goes towards our unrestricted funds.
So that is kind of a combination of funding
that may be used for operating support to help keep the lights on,
help pay for staff.
There are four of us and we are all part-time.
So we have really scaled back and we try to be very efficient.
And it also helps support programming,
like our speaker piece program, and grants.
And so that's what I think most people know
Encourage for is the grant support that we're able to provide
in our community for people that have ideas or for non-profit seeking assistance.
And in this case, with our guests today,
with Joe being on the phone with us in Junior Achievement,
we've been able to support Junior Achievement since our partnership
that began back in 2001.
And since then, there was an office in Stevens Point.
So that was primarily where support went.
And they had overseen programs in our area as well as Portage County.
And Joe has a wider area than that.
And the offices, he'll explain that.
But we were able to reengage our partnership recently.
And last year, we were able to award a grant to support programming
in the Southwood County area as well.
So since our partnership began, we've been able to support
Junior Achievement with grant making for over $16,000,
which has been great.
It's helped support the elementary programs,
middle school programs, expansions,
high school specific challenges that they've had
or just general operating support.
So they can continue the good work that they're doing.
And then also, reflecting on our operating support,
it's people and having the capacity to assist in different ways.
So specific to Junior Achievement,
when we had a larger staff, we did have some of our staff members
allocate time to assisting with business challenge,
being a mentor, helping out the program for Junior Achievement
and so many other organizations in our community and coalition.
So we're just really fortunate to have that support
and be able to support our nonprofits.
Kim, with the matching campaign,
can others be involved in that?
Can others help with that matching?
Absolutely.
Donations of any size would be greatly appreciated.
It is a dollar for dollar match.
And if there is another donor that's interested
in providing a future match,
we would be so honored to receive that.
We are celebrating our 30th year, this year,
which is really exciting.
And that kind of ties into the 30,000 by 330.
But we would be most appreciative of any and all donations.
And know that when you are working with and courage,
you are working and putting into the community.
Absolutely.
Every penny is going to help this community go forward
and help the future of this community,
the prosperity, the economics, every field,
every layer at FX.
And you do that just by working with and courage.
It's a really cool opportunity.
Also, another cool opportunity,
and good thing I wanted to mention also is the scholarships.
We've got the deadline coming up for that, correct?
Yes, absolutely.
The deadline for that is in two weeks.
So it's January 25th.
I actually had a conversation,
several conversations this week
with questions that have come in about scholarships.
So students, please keep working on those
and you have two weeks to get it done.
Yeah, and if you want more information on that,
we'll get you how to get in touch with Kim
before the end of the segment here.
And to the episode, we'll get to that.
Thank you, Kim.
Appreciate that update on and encourage and everything.
Appreciate it.
And now it's your turn, Joe.
Joseph, we're going to put you on the spot now.
We're going to make you talk.
I want to talk to you, Joe,
and I want to get to know a little bit
about what junior achievement is
and let our audience know a little more about it.
But before we go there,
tell us a little bit about yourself, Joseph.
How did you get involved with this?
Tell us a little bit about you.
So I am the development coordinator
for junior achievement in my area.
Public Portage, Wood, Juno, and Adams County.
I do a lot of writing and working
with community organizations like Encourage
to bring our programs to more schools,
more educators, more small towns,
large towns all across Central Wisconsin.
That's excellent.
I appreciate that work you're doing there, Joseph.
Now, what is that work?
What is junior achievement?
Who are you guys?
Well, yeah, so a little bit sort of a
background, a junior achievement
where a nationwide organization,
non-profit organization.
We have over 100 local J-area across the country.
And together we are the nation's largest organization
focused on teaching college,
career, and work readiness, entrepreneurship,
and financial literacy.
Nationwide, we serve over three million students
per year in over 100,000 class week
and after school location.
And here in Wisconsin, we've been around since 1941.
We have 10 statewide officers
across the state and we serve here in Wisconsin
over 154,000 students per year.
Wow, that's an impact.
That is an impact right there.
That's amazing.
It sounds like it's been a positive influence
as well in the state.
It has.
Yeah, we're sort of really focused on programs
that take advantage of partnerships
between community members,
local businesses,
and the kind of education community.
And so we work with organizations
like the Incourage Community Foundation
building on what kids are learning in the classroom
and kind of bringing real life learning to refusing.
Let's talk a little more about that, Joseph.
What does junior achievement?
What do you do?
How do you impact?
And how do you do achieve these things
that you're looking to do here?
Well, we depend heavily on volunteers
and our volunteers serve as mentors.
They work closely.
There's a number of different ways
you can volunteer for junior achievement.
But most of our volunteers
like to show up in the classroom
and they bring their own personal
real-world experience to students.
If you work in the banking industry
or if you work in insurance,
you come to the class
and you talk about ways
that the learning that they're doing
in the classroom could be applied
to what they're going to be doing
as either in college
or after college in the real-life work world.
They're able to, it sounds like you guys
are able to put a focus on certain areas
and those people that are coming in the help
with this are qualified and know those areas.
They do.
And I mean, we have all sorts of programs.
So I mean, your background
as a volunteer is as important
as your willingness to make a difference
in the lives of young people.
And we do provide training for volunteers here.
So, you know, if anyone's interested,
we're always looking for new volunteers
who want to impact and minds.
And Joseph, as far as the type of students
that J.A. can help, what is that in tail?
Well, we work with, if we work with students
anywhere from kindergarten,
age, all the way up through high school.
And so we sort of use a pathways approach.
So rather than kind of a one and done approach
where you might, you know,
a subject to students for a particular unit or semester,
we revisit the same themes year after year
all the way from kindergarten to another one to high school
so that those concepts really take root
in the minds of young people.
I know that, I know for me, it takes me,
more than once to kind of grasp a kind of stuff
and for young people as the thing.
Years, years, some of these I'm working on, man, I hear you.
Joseph, you mentioned to us that
the J.A. has been around since 1941.
So we've got a little, a good body of data, I imagine.
Have we seen J.A. learning experiences be impactful in adults?
Well, yeah, we have.
Actually, there's a survey, a recent survey
that we have results from that showed that 73% of junior achievement alumni,
so these are adults who participated in junior achievement as young people.
And of those who graduated college say that they work in a field
that they actually study in college.
Whereas, research by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows
that only 27% of all college graduates can see the same.
So that's a big difference.
Yeah.
I have a real, real life example of that.
My son was fortunate to participate in J.A.
And he is studying in his, or is working in the field that he studied in college.
So that just supports that.
That's great.
Very cool.
And I see here in our notes that adults who had J.A. as students
earned 20% more than peers, becoming business owners,
twice the rate of the general public.
That's a very important stat, I think, too.
Absolutely.
When you think of that, I mean, that's always good to me.
Yeah, right.
See, and sign me up.
Sounds really good.
So what about the need for this in communities?
Where are we finding the need?
What kind of stats are we taking from that to see where we need these?
Where we have these needs?
Well, you know, as you may know, schools are always struggling to do more with shrinking budgets.
After this year, that's really only going to become more pronounced.
Because the federal pandemic relief program is ending this year.
And that was a program that provided supplemental funds for K-312 schools
across the country during the pandemic.
So this is going to be the last year to use those dollars.
And as a result, some schools are talking about
coming back on programs like college planning, summer school.
And you know, we want to be here at a junior achievement.
We want to be here as a resource to help fill in the gaps
in those school programs that may arise.
What about the winter 2022 Wisconsin employer survey that was conducted?
Oh, what can he tell us about that?
Sure. So that survey showed that 88% of Wisconsin employers were actually having trouble
hiring employees. We're at the same time that employers are struggling to hire new employees.
Wisconsin's young people are still in the middle of recovering from those years of learning losses
and financial challenges that they experience due to the pandemic.
So as a result, we've seen that the demand for junior achievements programs is really
at an all-time high right now.
Interesting. What about Jay's local impact?
How does the local impact shake up?
Well, I mean, locally, you know, we sort of like to be the glue between
the education world, the business world, and you know, community members who are looking to
volunteer. So it's really a great way to make a difference in your communities.
The learning that young people do as a result of our programming tends to stay there in the community.
Young people, as we touched on a little bit earlier, young people who participate in junior
achievement programs are more likely to start businesses, more likely to have better financial
management, choices and decisions. So all of those things we have found really positive
in that local community.
And you guys have programs all across Central Wisconsin, I see.
All across the state, really, I could speak for Portage Wood, Juneau and Adams counties.
And we really appreciate Port of the Encourage Foundation to help us bring our programs to
more of the rural communities. We've been trying to focus on those rural communities and
Southwood communities. So yeah, we really have programs. So, you know, like I said, if you're
interested in volunteering in an elementary school, middle school, high school, we pretty much
got you covered.
What are the program types that are available with J.A.?
So we offer a traditional classroom program. So that's, you know, you're showing up in the classroom
during your expertise there. And again, we do provide some training. There's not a fun
training, but there's a little bit of training. There's also a job shadowing program,
where if you're interested in, you know, some, we find that a lot of parents who have
students in school are interested in, you know, sort of showing them the ropes at their place of
business. We have career speaker programs where, you know, perhaps the, you know, well-known
community member or business leader will come and speak to young people. And then we have our
big business challenge that we need volunteers for every year. And that's coming up in February.
I want to talk more about that in a second. We're speaking with Kim Shields from
Encourage Community Investment and Communications Specialist and Joseph Luther from Junior
Achievement. Joseph, let's talk about that Titan Business Challenge. What is that?
Sounds awesome. I'll tell you that right away. It's a great name right away. I immediately want
to know more about this. Right. So I think this will be something like the 20th year
so that Junior Achievement will be running the Titan Business Challenge. It's an online
game-based competition where high school students compete as CEOs in the cell phone industry.
And they're paired up with local community mentors to help run their simulated company.
And it's a substance contest. And they learned firsthand how organizations make decisions.
I've been able to make outcomes, strategize against their competitors. And the winning teams,
best of all, winning teams get scholarship money and they move on to the state level competition
and they're at the state. Those winners move on to nationals. So we're calling all teachers,
especially business and marketing teachers in high school to contact us and register their
teams for a big event. I teach acting and writing on the side. And one of the things that comes up
with students all the time is, well, what were some classes that you took in high school that were
really helpful or classes that you took right during high school, like at mid-sade at a tech
school or something like that. I right away tell them debate. Debate made me so more confident
talking in front of people, feeling more comfortable talking to others, and also how to improv,
how to think in my feet and a lot of that. But debate never comes up to actors. They never
think about this, but it's one of those ones I highly recommend to people, especially they want
to get into the yards and any of that. Having a program like this makes me think of that. It makes
me think if I'm a kid and I know I want to get into business, I want to go into one of these fields.
This is such a great opportunity to get my feet wet, to feel how it that's like a little bit
without necessarily, you know, the bottom line or fall getting into the black and some of these
other things that you'll have to deal with when you're an adult and everything. It's a really
cool idea. It's a very cool experience. I can only imagine that you've gotten some good feedback
over these 20 years or so of doing this. Got to encourage this community to reach out and get
involved in that. That's a really cool program. Thank you so much. I totally agree. I don't know
how many times I hear from young people in their 20s. They had a particular interest in high school
with a particular subject matter, and then they get out and they find themselves in a real
life job pursuing whatever it is that they were interested in high school. They find out that
it's nothing like they thought I was going to be. This isn't what I signed up for. We help to
provide those real life experiences to high school students so they can see. This is what you're
going to be doing. If you're interested in chemistry or biology, these are the types of
actual careers that are available to you. Joseph, we've mentioned a number of times with junior
achievement. Are there any local winners from this contest? With the Titan Business Channel,
have there been any local winners with that? Have there been anybody in the Central Wisconsin
that have won this? You know, I would have to cancel our records. I know we had a couple of
winners from Steven's Point area who went to the state last year. I don't have their name
and I know that we had the state winners nationals and that's what you're about. That's cool,
though. That's really cool. Whether we have it or we haven't, we can always have more.
Or you can be the first. There's always that. Joseph, I really appreciate the time with you today
and know how busy you are. We'll wrap up here. You've mentioned volunteering a number of times
and how vital that is to what junior achievements do. Can we talk a little bit about the volunteering
at GA? So really volunteers without volunteers were nothing. So volunteers are the engine that
drives our programming. If you're looking for a way to help inspire kids so that the kids can
achieve a more fulfilling life by sharing your own professional insights, personal experiences.
We'd love to hear from you. And again, volunteers can choose how they would like to serve.
We have elementary school, middle school, high school programs. We offer in-person virtual and
blended opportunities for volunteers. So I would just ask that anyone interested in volunteering
talk to your employer because oftentimes employers encourage or provide volunteer hours for their
employees. And yeah, I can't get a hold of this today. This is going to vary from person to
person with different schedules and everything. But on average, a volunteer is it a big time
restrict? Can you work with people's schedules? Some of this gray area that can hold people back
sometimes from volunteering. Are you able to work with people? Absolutely. And again, we provide those
virtual learning experiences so that can help people who may not have the flexibility in their
schedules. We have opportunities where you can volunteer for a single day or on an ongoing basis.
We have so many people in our communities that want to help, they want to put into their community,
they want to do good. A lot of people are unable always to add funds or do things with their wallet
or their purse or something. So, you know, our hands are time. That's almost just as valuable.
And being able to give of that can be just as impactful as dollars and cents can be.
Absolutely. Joseph, I really, really appreciate the time. If people want to find out more and reach
out to you, how can they do that? You can get a hold of me via email. It's just Jay Luther,
L-U-T-H-E-R, at jawisjawis.org. Or you can check out our website,
wisconsin.jaa.org. Go hold with me if you're interested in just learning more about the programming.
This is the website. Fantastic. Joseph, again, thank you so much for the time.
Really do appreciate it. You have a great day. Thank you, I appreciate it.
Joseph Luther from Junior Achievement, everybody. A big thank you to him for joining us.
That was a really great conversation. I began big thank you to Joseph for joining us, Ken.
Thanks for setting that up. Yeah, thank you.
And as now that I'm thinking about it, thank you for always giving of your time. Encourage could
easily take this 25 minutes and we could just talk about encourage, which we could definitely
talk about encourage for plenty of time. But you guys are always very giving of the time and
bringing people like Joseph on the air with us. And I know for a fact that some people in our
community don't know about some of these things until encourage brings them to our airway.
So I really do appreciate that. We also have some other great things about encourage.
We were talking about to begin our show. I want to come back to the matching campaign.
Remind people about scholarships if you don't mind. Great, thank you.
Yes, so right now we do have a matching campaign that is in process thanks to an incredibly
generous donor and supporter of encourage. It's called the $30,000 by 330 campaign.
The campaign dollars will be directed to our unrestricted funds to support encourages work.
So whether that be operating like keeping the lights on and helping to pay for staff
or helping to support delivery of our programs. Right now the one that is,
people know the most about is speaker piece, which we had two of our speaker piece presenters
on last fall to share some information about that, which is there's information on our website.
People want to check that out or whether it's to help build our unrestricted grant funds.
Yesterday we awarded our first grant for 2024 and it was for the United Way to support the
help guide and we've been able to support that from the very beginning with inception and
we are so appreciative of the partnerships with all of our nonprofits and we're happy to give back.
We appreciate Kim, appreciate your team over there and encourage. If people have fault questions,
one of the more, how can they get in contact with you? Give us a call at 715-423-3863
or send us an email at hello at encourage with an icf.org. Always good to talk to you and see it,
Kim. Thanks so much for the time. We'll talk again real soon. Sounds great. Thank you, James.
We'll have more midday magazine for you tomorrow right here on WFHR locally grown radio.
