Capital One/Junior Achievement Finance Park

Capital One/Junior Achievement Finance Park, the mobile version of JA Finance Park®, was created through the generous support of Capital One. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice provided initial support to create the programmatic content. JA Finance Park was created for middle and high school students, and culminates in an experiential learning opportunity at Capital One/Junior Achievement Finance Park.

 

What is Capital One/Junior Achievement Finance Park?

Capital One/Junior Achievement Finance Park is based upon the successful JA Finance Park® curriculum and is entirely funded by Capital One, which has also provided a multi-million dollar investment and thousands of associate volunteers to support the program.

The experience begins in the classroom with a four-week curriculum covering a range of financial topics including saving and investing, taxes and salary, personal budgeting and career goals. The in-class curriculum culminates in a day-long, on-site, budgeting simulation held at Capital One/Junior Achievement Finance Park.

During the one-day simulation, each student becomes “an adult for the day” and is assigned a fictional life situation so they can experience firsthand the real-life challenges of making personal budgeting decisions for themselves and their family. After calculating their Net Monthly Income for the fictional salary they’ve received, and while mentored by adult volunteers, the students visit 19 business kiosks that each represent a different budget category such as housing, transportation, health insurance, groceries, and utilities. Through this interactive process, students grasp the relevance of what they learn in the classroom to the real world, and better understand the relationship between income and lifestyle.

 

Come See Us in Action

Since 2008, Capital One and Junior Achievement have piloted a refined mobile JA Finance Park model, in an effort to reach a greater number of students with the on-site experience.

The current mobile unit, serving up to 150 students per day, consists of 19 pop-up business kiosks, each representing a budget category. Computers are housed in their own shipping cases complete with decorative overlay that gives the business kiosks an authentic look. This traveling economic experience can be operated in empty spaces of varying sizes, set up or torn down by 2-4 individuals in 6-10 hours and can be transported in a standard rental truck.

 

 

There are currently several mobile units; they can be found operating throughout the year in the following areas:

  • Dallas, Texas
  • Houston, Texas
  • San Antonio, Texas
  • Baton Rouge, Louisiana
  • New Orleans, Louisiana
  • Richmond, Virginia
  • Newark, New Jersey
  • Metro and Long Island, New York

Check out this video to get an in-depth look at Capital One/Junior Achievement Finance Park.

 

 

For more information about Capital One/Junior Achievement Finance Park, contact Beth Mazak at emazak@ja.org.