For more than four decades, Junior Achievement of the National Capital Area has been providing quality economic education programs to young people throughout the Greater Washington Region. With this new e-newsletter, our goal is to provide brief monthly updates of our ongoing efforts to positively impact the young people of our community.

In academic year 2007, JA served 35,948 children! This is an increase of more than 2,500 youth, or almost 8 percent, over the previous year. Our goal for this year is to reach nearly 40,000 children, but that takes more volunteers! To see how you can help, contact Amy.MarcenaroHeckman@JA.org.

JA of the National Capital Area has been honored again with the prestigious Summit Award. This annual award, given by JA Worldwide, recognizes JA area offices, the staff and the Board for operational excellence in the areas of financial solvency, program growth and quality and the display of best management practices. For more information, contact Ed.Grenier@JA.org.

More than 500 students participated in JA's Sliding Into Succe$$ program with the Washington Nationals, a program co-sponsored by Capital One. The initiative teaches students about financial management through budgeting and baseball. Nationals players Chad Cordero, Wiley Mo Pena and Ross Detwiler joined Capital One volunteers to deliver the program, which included trips to Nationals' games! To learn more, contact Unique.Morris@JA.org.

Following the success of the JA Finance Park mobile unit pilot, JA of the National Capital Area is moving forward to create a permanent facility to deliver JA Finance Park to all 8th grade students in Fairfax County! The JA Finance Park Task Force visited the Delaware JA Finance Park located just outside Wilmington in late October to learn more. For information, contact Amy.MarcenaroHeckman@JA.org.