Junior Achievement of South Central Kentucky receives a $10,000 grant from U.S. Bank

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (WBKO) - U.S. Bank has presented Junior Achievement of South-Central Kentucky a grant for $10k as part of the bank’s Community Possible platform.

The grant will assist Junior Achievement in its mission to empower youth to succeed by providing educational programs on financial literacy that will position at-risk K-12 students to escape the hold that poverty has on their families today.

“We’re trying to educate our youth on financial literacy and get them ready for the world after high school, no matter what that looks like for them,” said Allie Sharp, President of Junior Achievement of South-Central Kentucky.

From check writing to budgeting and navigating modern banking technology, the courses offered by Junior Achievement prepare students for real-world scenarios like paying bills and determining the difference between needs and wants.

The goal is to inspire and prepare students to succeed in a global economy by educating them on the value of free enterprise, business, and economics. These lessons are aimed at helping students learn to improve the quality of their lives.

“The focus of this grant is the financial literacy piece, but career readiness is something that we all know is very important to today’s world,” Sharp said.

There will be two versions of the course offered through the grant. Impacting roughly 2,500 underserved students, there will be separate versions for middle school and high school children.

“For our organization, something that is really important is to empower these kids,” Sharp said. “Empower them to know that they can get themselves out of a situation, know that they are powerful enough and smart enough and kind enough to be able to be successful after high school.”

All of Junior Achievement’s programs give students the tools and confidence to use those tools to move forward.

The programs, taught by community business volunteers, are free to schools as a way to reach as many children as possible.

Districts that are interested in having these programs brought to their schools can call Junior Achievement to get the process started.

“I think that the most important thing is that we’re making a difference even if it’s just to one student if it’s to 100 students, 1000 students, 10,000 students,” Sharp said. “We’re doing all that we can and we’re hopefully making progress and progress is all that we can ask for.”