According to Hanna Hochstetler, Youth Programs Coordinator at the Front Porch Alliance, the nonprofit organization is located on the east side of Kansas City and has been working closely with nearby communities since the 1990s. Today, the Reel Collectors is a program that annually brings together students from area high schools to learn about professional level filmmaking from start to finish. This includes every step in the process, from ideation to creation to production, and every other task in between. But how do students learn to leverage these skills? 

“Starting that first summer, we brought in Junior Achievement’s entrepreneurship curriculum because we want to help students take the skills they’re already learning and be able to make them into a real business,” Hanna said. 

A key part of the Front Porch Alliance team since 2021, Hanna’s helped lead the partnership between FPA and JA since that same year. Rather than run the programming entirely on our own, JA provides supplemental programming and curriculum to FPA to help further their goals. Since day one, Hanna has worked closely with JA to grow this partnership’s reach from five students studying personal finance curriculum to more than 140 students in the 2022-2023 academic year. 

This growth has been made possible by FPA’s decision to integrate numerous JA programs, including personal finance curriculum and interactive programming like pitch competitions and JA Company Pop-Up. 

“There’s an entrepreneurship mindset that students have these days, and it’s something I wish I’d had when I was younger,” she said. “Our hope is that students can take these hard, creative skills in film and entrepreneurship in order to start businesses in marketing, filmmaking, and anything else at that intersection of art and technology.” 

One unique aspect of this particular partnership is the fact that students involved in certain Front Porch Alliance programming actually earn a cash stipend for their dedication and hard work. This means that, in real time, students are learning to earn, save, invest, and spend real money that they’ve earned through creative and entrepreneurial pursuits. 

“I get to see students turn their passions into paychecks and learn how to budget wisely, which I hope they’ll continue to do in their future careers,” Hanna said. 

Ultimately, as far as Hanna’s concerned, the JA and FPA partnership continues to bring value to multiple facets of her work. She sees the ways that students are building social networks, asking candid questions of local professionals who are pursuing career paths that students are interested in, and seeking out answers to the tough financial questions they don’t feel they can ask anywhere else. 

“I love working with JA. Every time we meet, we’re figuring out how we can help each other, and we’re also brainstorming together to make the best programming possible for the students that we’re working with,” she said. “It’s exciting – and it makes my job a lot easier – to be in a creative space where we’re both going after the same goals.” 

Our onsite options, like JA BizTown®, presented by CommunityAmerica Credit Union, are an example of expanding education, but they’re not the only innovative way that JA is bridging education and real world for students outside the classroom. Enter JA Connect 

JA Connect is Junior Achievement’s first self-guided student experience, featuring a flexible, modular repository of activities related to work and career readiness. The online activities give students an opportunity to acquire knowledge and to apply and practice new skills and behaviors inside or outside the classroom.¹ 

JA Connect was developed in conjunction with Accenture, a leading global company dedicated to delivering on the promise of technology and human ingenuity.² After seeing the success of JA Connect and the natural partnership between Accenture and JA, we knew they were the right partner  to curate a new, inviting and interactive website – the “digital front door” to JA of Greater Kansas City. 

“Accenture understands innovation and forging a path, and that’s what we’re doing at JA of Greater Kansas City,” notes Megan Sturges Stanfield, President and CEO. “With our new facility and learning experiences paving a new way for education in KC, it was an easy decision to work with Accenture to develop the new website.” 

Accenture’s generous in-kind support for the setup and backend development of the new and improved jagkc.org, is allowing Junior Achievement of Greater Kansas City to expand our reach beyond the four walls of our building in addition to the four walls of the schools we partner with.  

The need for a localized, customized, and engaging website was at the top of JA’s wish list. The team at Accenture provided best practices, backend and technical setup and assisted with the launch process. Check-ins and guidance were provided along the way to the in-house Junior Achievement staff that built and designed the content of the site. 

“Being able to have a sounding board when we hit a snag was vital to our success,” notes JA Director of Marketing and Communications, Torey Berndt. ”Knowing Accenture was just an email away really helped us to dream big and make our website shine the way we wanted it to.” 

Accenture committed a variety of resources and personnel to the project, expanding past traditional roles to develop the next generation of talent. On top of consulting resources and guidance, Accenture also utilized apprentices and interns, allowing them to gain experience and take ownership of the project. 

Team members who worked on the site included Tina Kucherovsky, John Qosimi, JR Cadwallader, Joe Muelleman, Howard Tempero, Tiauna Fanning and apprentice Andrew Dowd.

The results were exactly what Junior Achievement of Greater Kansas City was hoping for. A fun and inviting website that’s easy to navigate with an updated look is now the entry point for educators, volunteers, supporters and more to participate in all that Junior Achievement has to offer. 

The website provides resources that invite visitors to learn about Junior Achievement’s mission and the various opportunities for educators, across the K-12 continuum, to engage JA in their lessons to, highlighting our community partners, those at-home tools (like JA Connect) and much more. To volunteer with Junior Achievement of Greater Kansas City, visit our volunteer page. If you would like to contribute financial or in-kind support, learn about our investment opportunities. 

1 – From JA Connect program brief, 2020 

2 – Accenture, LLP, “About” webpage 

With elements of idea generation, financial management, career exploration and more, the new design represents the fun and interactive opportunity that students experience at JA BizTown, presented by CommunityAmerica Credit Union. JA BizTown is a field trip experience for Kansas City area students which combines classroom learning with a field trip opportunity to a simulated Kansas City economy. Students are given a job in a storefront and learn teamwork, earn & spend money, vote and more. JA BizTown connects the dots between their in-school lessons and the real-world.

Charlie Hustle has a storefront at JA BizTown. Student employees at Charlie Hustle include the CEO, CFO, and Creative Designer, amongst others. Students that visit Charlie Hustle can design their own KC Heart shirt design and purchase merchandise!

Greg Moore, Chief Operating Officer at Charlie Hustle, noted that BizTown fits well with Charlie Hustle’s goals and business plan: “As a small business that seeks to evoke happiness through designs, apparel, and community involvement, Charlie Hustle is thrilled to have a storefront at this unique learning experience. It’s exciting to know that JA BizTown students are seeing everything that goes into making a small business successful. We need more learning experiences like this, which is why Charlie Hustle is ecstatic to be a part of this one.“