Crews break ground on new Junior Achievement Discovery Center

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Crews broke ground on the new Junior Achievement Discovery Center coming to Columbia County.

Here’s how this program can help fill a need for financial literacy in the river region.

Members of Columbia County and Richmond County schools know this ceremony means more to the students.

Those involved since the beginning know they’re working towards a building that will teach students real-life skills early.

Charlie Walker is the Richmond County Board of Education’s president. He said, “What are my responsibilities? Get them in sixth grade, get them in eighth grade, and then you might change some perceptions of their ideas of what they need to do moving forward.”

Walker knew this benefits all students in the area because it gives everyone equal opportunities to learn.

“If we can give everybody the same opportunity to look at things the same way, they’ll take it and digest it and figure out what works best for them,” said Walker.

Dr. Kenneth Bradshaw is the Richmond County superintendent. He hopes this new real-world curriculum and center will be a stepping stone for high schools, where they have personal finance lessons in place.

“Hopefully learning this in middle school will have them prepared for high school and a better understanding,” he said.

This then helps post-grad where 31 percent of Richmond County grads go straight into the workforce. That’s where the hopes of this building come full circle.

John Hancock the JA of Georgia CEO said: “To prepare young people for school and for career and for life and these programs that exist in the discovery center are really really most germane and are evidence of that mission.”

Hancock says he’s never seen a community like this with so much support for their students.

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