Junior Achievement of Southeast Texas

We are truly honored to partner with Fort Bend ISD's Career Technical Education Department and many of their middle schools to execute the JA Company Program Pop Up and to pilot our very first Trade Expo which was a huge success! Our middle school students not only successfully completed the JA Company Program Pop Up but created some innovative products that can impact the community in a significant way. From water filters, reading lights and 3D printed toys to custom designed clothing, custom designed lunch boxes and organic skin care solutions, our middle school students knocked it out of the park with their hard work and mindset and we are so proud of them.

Our sincere appreciation goes out to our long standing JA Company Program mentors from SLB, Kristine Ford and Elyssa Freund for serving as our esteemed Expo judges and for dedicated so many hours this year to empower our students in Fort Bend ISD through this program. We are also thankfful to our alumni leader Isaac Karim for his unwavering support in helping execute out Expo successfully. We continue to be grateful to our robust partnership with Fort Bend ISD and are indebted to both the Career Technical Education Department as well as Collaborative Communities for their leadership and vision. We cannot wait to see the JA Company Program and the JA Company Program Pop Up expand further in 2025-26 and fullfll our mission of Empowerment Through Entrepreneurship!

We welcomed Stellar Bank employees to their 2025 JA Trivia Bowl, and found that not only are they stellar bankers, but also incredible bowlers, competitive trivia players, and so much fun at a party!

We are grateful for our continued support and generous matching donations from Stellar Bank, and especially to Bob Franklin for serving on our Board of Directors and championing the mission of JA. Thank you to Martha Jordan for coordinating this event for your employees, and to everyone who fundraised and joined us at the event!

Thank you to all who joined our 25th Annual Katy ISD | JA Golf Scramble on Monday! We celebrated this milestone year with some good food, great friends, and hot weather at Meadowbrook Farms Golf Club. We are grateful for our returning supporters of this event, and to the new teams and sponsors we met this year. We could not serve our students throughout Katy ISD and beyond without YOU!

Thanks to our major event sponsors:
Flag Sponsor - SM Energy Company
Golf Cart Sponsor - Salas O'Brienn
Shirt Sponsor - Houston Methodist West Hospital
Goodie Bag Sponsor - VLK Architects
Towel Sponsor - LECS Electrical Contractors
Trophy Sponsor - Terracon
In-Kind Breakfast Sponsor - Evelyn Angelle, Kolache Factory

Thank you to the Houston Business Journal for an amazing feature spotlighting JA Company Program business Financial Fortunes from Texas Connections Academy in Houston Independent School District. We are incredibly proud of our team led by Trisha Bhatnagar and Madhavan Vinod as they work tirelessly to advance financial literacy knowledge amongst young learners, going to the heart of one of our educational pillars as an organization. We are so grateful to the Houston Business Journal’s visionary Market President and Publisher Traci Pelter for her unwavering support and for championing many of our teenpreneurs.

Financial literacy in US stagnates at 50%; Texas ranks 43rd as experts call for early education - Houston Business Journal See how this student-led company in Houston is addressing declining financial literacy rates.

Worley joined us for a lunch-time Trivia Bowl last Friday! Thank you to those who attended and fundraised for JA, and especially to Meghan Pfeifer for coordinating a memorable event with her committee members: Esmeralda Trevino and Kamila Kurbanova. Before the event, Worley invited us to set up a table in their building lobby to engage their employees in getting involved with us at JA. We are grateful to have their continued support!

Our JA Company Program students won many awards won at Future Bound hosted by Junior Achievement USA and their consistency in performing at an exceptional level has been inspiring to see. This is our national competition with the highest benchmarks for excellence and we were honored to receive the below rankings and prizes:

Social Innovation Challenge FIRST PLACE - Terra Feminine Products, Harmony School of Innovation - Sugar Land.

Social Innovation Challenge SECOND PLACE - Compost Heroes, The Village School Houston.

Social Innovation Challenge Student Choice Award - Compost Heroes, The Village School Houston.

Company of the Year Competition, THIRD PLACE - EVO, Elkins High School in Fort Bend ISD

Company of the Year Competition, The Jim Sweeney Scholarship Award for Entrepreneurial Excellence - Neha Varghese, COO of EVO, Elkins High School

We are grateful to so many JA Board companies and partner organizations that made our Future Bound 2025 journey seamless. Special thanks goes out to EY, SLB and their BOLD ERG, SCORE Mentors Houston, Fifth Ring, One Foot Over, the American Marketing Association, the JA Company Program Alumni Network and TiE Houston.

We are thankful to so many invested JA Board companies, JA Board members, mentors and educators who have been an integral part of our JA Company Program journey to Nationals and for making a huge impact on our mission of empowering our youth through pioneering entrepreneurship and workforce readiness education. Here's to a spectacular 2025-2026!!!

🎳📚 Big cheers to Sun Coast Resources, a RelaDyne Company for bringing the energy at their annual JA Trivia Bowl! Last week’s event was packed with dancing, bowling, and some fierce competition during the “Read All About It” trivia challenge.

After months of fundraising, we were thrilled to celebrate with the team—and even more excited to announce that they exceeded their goal! 👏

Huge thanks to everyone who joined us, and a special shoutout to Laura Lipscomb for organizing such a fun and meaningful evening. We’re grateful for your continued support of Junior Achievement! 💚✨

HISD’s Wisdom High School sophomores just wrapped up their final 3DE Case Challenge — and they made it count!

This time, the challenge came from UUPS how to attract and retain seasonal employees. Tough ask? Maybe. But they stepped up, worked as a team, and had a blast pitching their ideas to recruitment experts from BBurnett Specialists

It’s not every day you get to present to professionals who do this for a living — and our students brought the creativity, energy, and confidence.

Big thanks to our judges for the thoughtful feedback, to the amazing coaches for helping them get here, and to JA Board Member Sue Burnett for supporting 33DEschoolsin Houston.

We’re so proud of how far these students have come — and glad they had fun doing it!

This year marks the 39th Annual JA Trivia Bowl presented by Emerson! None of these events would be possible without our incredible Presenting Sponsor, and we had the pleasure of hosting them for their own Trivia Bowl last week. Thank you to the employees who fundraised and joined us, to Megan O'Connell and Ashley Austin for coordinating, and to our Board Member Keven Dunphy for your outstanding dedication to the mission of JA. We are so grateful for this partnership!

📦✨ The end of an era — and the beginning of something BIG!

On May 29, we wrapped up our last official day of JA BizTown in our current location with an energetic group of young leaders from Harvard Elementary in Houston ISD! 🏙️💼

We’ve loved every moment spent empowering students to connect education with the real world in this space. And now, we look ahead with excitement: the next time students walk through the doors of JA BizTown, it will be at our brand-new Phillips 66 | JA Discovery Center, opening in Spring 2026! 🏗️🌟

Thank you to all the educators, volunteers, and students who’ve brought this location to life since 1999. The future is bright — and we’re just getting started. 💚

We are beyond grateful to longtime mentors and supporters, Frost Bank for their steadfast dedication and belief in our students. This year our wonderful Frost Bank mentors dedicated themselves to guiding our fledgling entrepreneurs at Spring High School in Spring ISD and ended the year with an amazing in-house pitch competition. We are so proud of our students for their hard work and could not be more grateful to our mentors Natasha Acuna, Amina Garcia, Ray Acevedo and Roger Flores for truly going above and beyond to coach our students and a very special thank you to Erika Jones, for her leadership and for always being a phone call away to champion our mission of Empowerment Through Entrepreneurship!

We are also indebted to Spring ISD and their visionary superintendent Dr. Lupita Hinojosa for her leadership and for the support she and her wonderful team have extended to the JA Company Program this year. We are excited to continue partnering with the CTE department and to further impact the lives of our students through transformational entrepreneurship and workforce readiness education. Massive thanks to Cynthia Williams and Matthew Pariseau for their unwavering support and great encouragement! We are also deeply grateful to our faculty sponsor Carolyn Gereke for helping us execute the JA Company Program efficiently.

Here’s to one of the memorable moments in the 3DEschools journey of freshmen at Houston Independent School District's Margaret Long Wisdom High School — presenting their recommendations for the RBC Case Challenge.

This case focused on engaging communication — a core competency these students are building every day.

There’s no better way to grow than by practicing, getting feedback, and trying again — and the progress we’ve seen this year is already impressive.

Thank you to RBC and our champion, Clayton Bryant, for designing such a thoughtful challenge, to Bilal Zakaria for serving as judge, and to JA Board member Andrew Horn for supporting 3DE Schools. Tracy Paddock Beam, we loved having you with us to celebrate this moment.

Way to go, 3DE Class of 2028! 👏