Doughnuts and Taxes: Volunteering with Junior Achievement.

• Author: Anderson, Tasha

In October I took advantage of an opportunity to participate in JA in a Day, a program by Junior Achievement (JA) of Alaska that brings volunteers into schools to teach students about business. It was exhausting and fantastic, a wonderfully fulfilling opportunity to connect with local youth and share a little bit of myself to hopefully give them a foundation of financial success in their future. So here's how it went.

Signing Up

it was quick and easy. At any point if you're interested in volunteering for JA of Alaska, you can go to the organization's website at alaska.ja.org.

In my case, because of the longstanding relationship between JA of Alaska and Alaska Business, JA of Alaska's President Flora Teo was kind enough to send over an invitation to our entire office, and both myself and our Bookkeeper James Barnhill decided to jump in with both feet.

We were given the opportunity to sign up for an online training session; unfortunately, working at the magazine has permanently "adjusted" my sense of time, and I signed up for a session that took place after I was supposed to volunteer. On the fortunate side, the delightful staff at JA caught my error and I was able to watch a recorded training session with helpful information on how to communicate with the students, along with guidelines on appropriate ways to interact with them.

A few days before I volunteered, a packet of materials was dropped off at my office. The night before, I opened it--I'm an editor, I hit deadlines, I don't dash ahead in front of them--and found to my delight several lesson plans complete with all the materials I needed for several activities, including fake money, little paper doughnuts, stickers, magnets for the kids, and perhaps most importantly, a manual. I reviewed each plan and thought, "Great! I'm ready!"

I Wasn't Ready

...But unless your profession is teaching children or you've volunteered before, I'm not sure you can be. So don't let that dissuade you.

The morning I was signed up to volunteer, I met the other JA volunteers at the elementary school. JA kindly provided us with snacks and gave us newbies time to settle our nerves by chatting with each other, and many of the other volunteers were old hands at JA in a Day. i could tell from their palpable excitement that this really was an opportunity worth making time for, even as they traded stories about their favorite, funniest, or less-than-stellar moments.

In time, the intercom announced that, as the...