Working at Junior Achievement helped inspire and shape me into the professional I am today. I have many memories from the decade I was with JA, and of those, the majority came from the JA Business Week program.

One of the most memorable moments was when I was scheduling students from the winning JA Business Week team for a television segment on 9News.

I had emailed all of the students to find out who could make the TV appearance. One of the parents called me in response; coincidentally, the parent also happened to be an elementary school teacher who had JA in her classroom. She told me that I may not want her daughter to be on TV representing the summer teen program. When her daughter attended in June (it was now September), she had been keeping a big secret: she was three months pregnant at the time of the program. Now in September, she was visibly pregnant, and her mom was worried that it might send the wrong message about our overnight camp.

I was taken aback. I had no idea that she was pregnant when she was attending JA Business Week. Her mom told me how the daughter was in a dark place and almost did not show up to the program. However, after attending JA Business Week, she found the courage to tell her family about her pregnancy and establish a plan for raising the baby. The girl’s parents would help her raise the child while the new mom attended community college, studying business thanks to JA Business Week.

Before JA Business Week, this young woman was in a dark place and had told her mom that she didn’t know what her future would look like. Now, she has a beautiful daughter and, after receiving her college degree, has been working in business while taking care of her child.