About Junior Achievement 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. Junior Achievement programs reached 14,000 Broward and South Palm Beach County students during the 2008-2009 school year. It also received a Bronze Summit Award, based on Financial Solvency, Program Impact, Program Quality and Overall Management Effectiveness.