OLD BRIDGE – On the morning of April 19, during the first of three BizTown town hall meetings, Old Bridge Mayor Owen Henry swore in Pierre Ishak, a sixth grader from St. Thomas the Apostle in Old Bridge, as mayor of JA BizTown.
Since the program’s pilot in spring 2014, Junior Achievement of New Jersey (JA) gives real-world learning opportunities to fourth through seventh graders through JA BizTown, beginning with in-class lessons and culminating in one-day simulation field trip.
Pierre was just one of 80 students from St. Thomas the Apostle and one of 5,000 students who will experience JA BizTown this school year. He was elected mayor by his peers.
Prior the children’s field trip to BizTown, the students applied and interviewed for the BizTown jobs such as CEOs and CFOs which are in every storefront, utility workers, photographers, deejays, Quest Diagnostics medical technologists, MetLife financial service managers, Horizon Foundation Wellness technicians, NJ Credit Union or Investors Bank tellers, UPS workers, Walmart sales managers and more.
Henry, who is an alumnus of St. Thomas the Apostle, spent time walking through the JA BizTown simulation in Princeton, visiting each of the 14 volunteer-assisted storefronts, shaking hands and networking with the students who were role-playing for the day in a variety of jobs, according to a statement prepared by Junior Achievement of New Jersey.
For more information, visit www.janj.org.
