Junior Achievement of South Florida

Junior Achievement was founded in 1919 by Theodore Vail, president of American Telephone & Telegraph; Horace Moses, president of Strathmore Paper Co.; and Senator Murray Crane of Massachusetts. Its first program, The Company Program, was offered to high school students on an after-school basis. In 1975, the organization entered the classroom with the introduction of Project Business for the middle grades. In the last 25 years, Junior Achievement has gradually expanded its activities and broadened its scope to encompass an ever-widening student population.

Junior Achievement of South Florida was founded locally in 1959 by the Fort Lauderdale Rotary Club and served just 373 high school students during its first year. Programs now span grades K-12, with age-appropriate curricula designed to teach elementary students about their roles as individuals, workers, and consumers and to prepare middle grade and high school students for key economic and workforce issues they will face. In 2009 JA World Huizenga Center was built to serve every 5th and 8th grader in Broward County. This year Junior Achievement programswill reach over 50,000 Broward and South Palm Beach County students.