Chamber eager to keep long-running education program going

FAIRMONT - The Fairmont Area Chamber of Commerce has brought Junior Achievement to Fairmont students longer than anyone there can remember, but the program is now in need of volunteers to keep it going.

The program goes through grades K-6, teaching students about financial literacy, work and career readiness and entrepreneurship.

Each unit builds on the previous ones. Kindergartners learns about themselves and individual choices, and it is followed up in future grades by learning the roles and responsibilities of family members in first grade, how communities meet shared needs in second grade, how cities work in third grade, how regional differences shape opportunities in fourth grade, the essential aspects of America's economy and skill development in fifth grade and money management skills in sixth grade.

"A volunteer goes into the classroom and teaches for an hour," Chamber President Miranda Tulowetzke said. "We provide all the curriculum to go over that, to provide real-life skills to help the youth succeed in schoolwork and adult life."

The material is presented in pre-prepared, ready-to-use, hands-on kits.

"They get to play with them and have activities, and all that curriculum is included," Tulowetzke said. "Each depends on which session they’re in, but has a different project. I know they have done where you have to run a city, and you go through that whole process and the civics of that."

These are done in five one-hour sessions. A lot of how it works is volunteer-led.

"They select which teacher they would like to volunteer with," Tulowetzke said. "You can go in, select on our sign-up link which class you would like to volunteer in, and then you coordinate directly with the teacher on the schedule. It’s really flexible. You work directly with whatever teacher you choose to volunteer with, continuing to set up that schedule. Typically it’s an hour a week, but it can adjust accordingly to whatever the volunteer schedule is."

This can go up to monthly visits, as the program runs from October through April, though Tulowetzke said they prefer to work with younger students early on and older students later in that period.

Currently, there are five to six classrooms at each grade level for this program, each one needing a volunteer.

"There’s a lot," Tulowetzke said. "We only have about 20 percent of our volunteer slots currently filled. We are looking for a lot more volunteers for sure."

Over the last few years, as Tulowetzke has sat on the Chamber Board, finding enough people has been a consistent issue. This has led to some difficult conversations.

"I know there had been talks about cutting the program just because it’s a lot of work and a lot of effort and time goes into it, and we need those volunteers," she said. "Unfortunately, they’re just hard to come by nowadays, getting those volunteers. We’re trying it again, hoping we can get filled up again and give these kids that experience that so many others have had before them."

If more volunteers cannot be found, Tulowetzke said they will have to cut the upper grades and move signed up volunteers to the lower grades.

Doing this program has had benefits on all sides of the table.

"I just feel it’s invaluable to the kids," Tulowetzke said. "Every single person I’ve ever talked to that has done it has said it’s awesome. The kids love it. It’s a little nice break for the teachers to have someone else come in and teach them something else, and gives the kids a little variety in their day, too."

On the chamber side, Tulowetzke said investing in this program, with each kit costing $150 and around 45 kits being needed, is investing in the youth of Fairmont.

"That’s kind of our whole goal of the chamber is the business networking," she said. "Connecting people and trying to raise new employees for all of our local businesses. That’s definitely a big part of the chamber."

In speaking with people, one misconception Tulowetzke has run into is people are interested, but they think it’s harder than it actually is.

"They’re like, 'Well, what do I have to do? What does it all entail?'" she said. "It’s really done for you. All the curriculum is included. It step-by-step guides you how to teach these kids. I think maybe just a little bit of fear from people, fear of the unknown of what it all entails. Once you do it and you get into it, we try to make it as easy as possible for our volunteers."

No previous experience in teaching is necessary to volunteer for this program. The Chamber is looking for volunteers soon so they know how many kits to order and which grades they can cover. For more information, or to sign up as a volunteer, visit fairmontchamber.org/junior-achievement/.