Mobile Finance Park Returns to Prepare Long Island Students for Real World Financial Realities

NEW YORK, NY – Capital One / Junior Achievement Mobile Finance Park is moving to Hauppauge, Suffolk County, Long Island for an eighth season cycle after a successful winter run in Brooklyn, NY. More than 2,600 middle and high school students have already participated in the program during the first half of the 2015 Winter/Spring run. JA New York’s signature personal finance education and career exploration program for middle and high school grade students will return to the Hauppauge Industrial Center on April 13 through to June 12, 2015, where we expect an additional 2,700+ students to participate.

Mobile Finance Park is an ideal experiential program that teaches money management, budgeting and career exploration skills in a fun and engaging environment. The goal is for teens to learn critical personal finance concepts and skills necessary to successfully navigate and participate in the 21^st century global economy. 

Mobile Finance Park allows students to see, touch, and experience the economic world around them on their own terms. Students receive a fictional persona with a specific income level, family structure and career. From this, they learn to determine how much they can afford to spend on food, car payments, rent, electricity, education, and a host of other basic needs.

For Long Island students, the program could not be timelier as we move into National April Financial Literacy Month – created to highlight financial literacy educational initiatives and resources that teach Americans how to establish and maintain healthy financial habits. 

“It is obvious that parents and teens need to have honest conversations about money management, including paying for college, and choosing a career,” said Joseph Peri, President of JA New York. “We want kids to understand how important it is to develop a plan for life after high school – whatever that looks like for them and their families. Mobile Finance Park helps bridge the personal finance knowledge gap by showing young people the connection between learning and earning potential, and by providing them with the knowledge, experience and skills to make important life decisions.”

Since 2008 when the program first launched on Long Island, more than 26,000 middle and high school students have been introduced to the skills they will need to reach their financial and career goals as confident, successful, and contributing members of the NYC and Long Island communities.

Keeping pace with the introduction of mobile technology in the classroom, in 2015, the Mobile Finance Park experience has upgraded to a tablet-driven, paperless format. This program enhancement will greatly improve the teaching and learning experience on site.

Contact:

Jacqueline Dolly

Phone: 212-907-0046

Email: jdolly@jany.org

@JANewYork

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ABOUT JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF NEW YORK

Junior Achievement of New York is the local affiliate of Junior Achievement USA, the world’s largest organization dedicated to giving young people the knowledge and skills they need to own their economic success, plan for their future, and make smart academic and economic choices. We recruit, train, and mobilize more than 5000 corporate and community volunteers to provide relevant, hands-on experiences that give students knowledge and skills in financial literacy, work readiness and entrepreneurship. Today, JA New York delivers nearly 70,000 student experiences per year, free of cost, in more than 200 NYC and Long Island public schools. Visit http://www.jany.org/ for more information

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