THE Cambridge Connection - Episode 42

And for those that don’t want to spend additional on maintenance, it’s also bad for your vehicle because your vapor recovery system has a charcoal line canister that absorbs the vapor. So it reduces the hydrocarbon emissions by about 95%. So if you continue to do that, it potentially impacts the effectiveness of that charcoal chamber. Wow. You’re a wealth of knowledge today.

I’m impressed. We have to bring information again. We’re in some very bizarre times. And again, I think it’s an honor that we’re going to have Jennifer Connelly on again from Junior Achievement today to talk about some of the summer programs for the kids and some future opportunities with Junior Achievement as well. Very exciting.

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All right. We’re going to take a quick break. We’ll be right back with Jennifer Connelly from Junior Achievement. This is The Cambridge Connection. Inflation is pushing family finances to the brink.

Don’t let that happen to you. Call 1-800-CAMBRIDGE. Find out how to pay your bills in full while saving money in the process. Take control of your debt before it starts controlling you. Welcome back, everyone, to The Cambridge Connection.

Welcoming Junior Achievement guest

I’m your host, Gordon Oliver, here with my co-pilot, Tina Marie. And we’re honored to have our special guest, Jennifer Connelly from Junior Achievement of Western Mass. Jennifer, how are you today? Very good. Thank you.

Welcome back, Jennifer. Nice to have you back again. It’s good to be back. I did have some fun, so in between, but it’s nice to be talking with you guys again. Yeah, obviously, never too often that we can talk about the future of our youth.

But before we do that, how was your 4th of July? It was very good. We took a trip to the White Mountains with my grandsons. They’re 6 and 10, and we went to Santa’s Village and Story Land. So yeah, it’s something we’ve been going to for over 50 years.

Where are the White Mountains? In New Hampshire. That’s what I thought. Yeah. Story Land’s right outside of North Conway, and Santa’s Village is up in Jefferson.

So you get to see a lot of trees, a lot of beautiful lands and mountains and things. You can tell how the world has changed when the grandkids get to see Santa. One asked for a kitten, and the other one asked Santa if he could stop COVID. Oh. There you go.

So pre-Christmas in July, obviously. Yep. Yep. Yep. And if I remember correctly, they’ve been there a pretty long time, Santa’s Land.

I think... This is their 70th year. Yeah. I think back in 1970s, I went as a little girl. Yes.

Now that I remember correctly, I even have pictures there. So yeah. Oh, wow. I didn’t even know it still existed. Oh, yeah.

It’s fun. Was Santa wearing a tag top and shorts? Nope. Nope. He was in air conditioning.

So he had the whole... His whole suit was on. Yep. Yeah. I imagine they don’t spare the air conditioning there.

Yeah. So it was fun. Reindeer. You got to see the reindeer. Yes.

I remember. Yep. Oh, wow. For those of you listening that have not visited the White Mountains in New Hampshire and those two facilities, I’ve been there myself with my kids, and it really is tremendous. It’s just feel-good stuff in a time when the world’s a little all over the place.

So I’m glad that you and your family had a great time. Thank you very much. So before we get into talking about the summer and programs for our youth, can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and about your position and your role at Junior Achievement of Western Mass? Certainly. I may, if you tell by my accent, I’m not a regular Western Massachusetts.

I have a Maine accent, so I’m a transplant, but adopted this wonderful region since 2003, and I am president of Junior Achievement of Western Massachusetts, which is a nonprofit educational organization that delivers programs for students K-12 in schools and youth groups dealing with financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and career and workforce readiness. So it’s something that, and I figured this out, I was actually in Junior Achievement as a kid 50 years ago, so something near and dear to my heart, and near and dear to Springfield because this is where JA started in 1919. Yeah, this is obviously also a podcast, so nationally for people listening to the show, there is a national Junior Achievement. Is that correct, Jennifer? Yes, there is.

Summer programs for youth

There’s JA USA, there’s also JA Worldwide, and like us, the areas, there’s 104 areas in the United States that do Junior Achievement programming, and about 10 million youth across the world that do Junior Achievement every year. So we’re going to talk about the Western Mass initiatives, but can you find on the Maine websites like locators where the chapters exist so that if people listening are looking to see what kind of programs are in their area or their Junior Achievement, can they find it through like a locator service on the website? They can type in JA USA and that’ll take them to the national website, and they can put in their zip code and look in the areas and see what JAs are around them, yep. Again, stimulating our youth to do great things in the world. It’s great to know that the organization is, you said, worldwide, so that’s incredible as well.

So let’s start talking about now, kids have been out of school for a couple weeks now, so what kind of programs... are being offered through Junior Achievement for the K through 12 youth? In our area, we don’t have a summer program this year, only because with the pandemic and things, our staff has been cut back and our programming has been mostly virtual for the past, well, since March of 2020. However, some other JA areas, I know if you’re in the southeastern part of the state near New Bedford Fall River, they have a SPARC program that’s for high school, middle school girls that entrepreneurial based. They have some innovation programs going on in Boston in that area with their new innovation center.

org. And it even has a coding activity for second graders. So they can do things, look into businesses, look into careers, how to manage money. There’s games that they can play. So there’s different online opportunities for parents.

org and check out the things there. I know for young people in the area, there’s a lot of different summer camps that are open. The Y’s, the YMCA’s, the Boys and Girls Clubs, Holyoke and Chicopee and Ludlow, they all have great programs. And the Parks and Rec Department in many of the cities and towns are offering, they can go by the week and they have great programs that goes now through probably the end of August to be able to give the student, give the young people opportunities to swim and to explore and to do, some of them even do archery and kickball things. So a lot of different opportunities for young people in the area and parents to put their students in a safe place, put their young children in a safe place.

Yeah, you know, the summer camps is a perfect example. I think one of the alarming things that we see today is that youth activities in general are declining. Like youth sports for a while now in the pandemic certainly didn’t help, but youth sports being active, those numbers are declining. And, you know, we’re in the electronic age, we’ve got these electronic devices that are incredible. You have information at your fingertips and it looks like a lot of the youth is constantly now in the mode of using these electronic devices.

So having camps and activities where kids are actually getting outside, playing a sport, playing kickball. I remember that’s all we did on my block. We played kickball almost every day, it seemed. It was just such a fun sport and you don’t really see it being played anymore. And again, the kids need to be active.

So it’s those kinds of activities in camps that are important to stimulate activity in the youth. Yeah, and if I can add to that. Oh, I’m sorry, my granddaughter actually, this is her first year and she’s at the Springfield Boys and Girls Club. And yesterday was actually her first day. And it was so, like this morning was such a good feeling because when she woke up, she said, Nona, I can’t wait to go to camp today.

And she told me all about, they were gonna go swimming and they had arts and crafts. And across the street, there was a big field where they do track and field or just games. And it was just so refreshing to hear that out of her mouth rather than Nona, can I please watch YouTube on your phone? Yeah. Absolutely, my grandsons will wear down my battery.

Yes. And they sometimes they get out of school and that they’re in the car and- Yes. Can I have your phone? Before they even buckle their seatbelt, it’s ridiculous. I know, yes.

So being able to have the opportunity to run and play because a lot of times the older, maybe fifth grade, fourth grade, they don’t let them out for recess sometimes. And so where are they going to get, even during the school year, the opportunities to do some of the things we all did just with our friends and our brothers and sisters, we were there for the summer. We were outside, we were running around, we were kind of being inventive. And like you said, my grandsons, it was their first day ever doing a summer camp. Yeah.

And they said they had archery. Right. Water sports. And they were just, it was like we did kickball. Yes.

No, tomorrow we’re gonna play dodgeball. I’m like, oh, one of my favorites. I know, I know, takes you back, doesn’t it? And they do have camps that are, if they have like a writing, sometimes you can find a writing camp or a baking camp or things like that. So it’s wonderful that there are different opportunities that we can provide for our children.

And a lot of them are operated on a sliding thesis scale. So they really want safe places for the students to go and activities that will stimulate them, get them out and moving, not like you said, not just sitting there on their phones or their iPads. And that’s great. It’s something for everyone. So if sports aren’t your things, like you just said, baking, writing, other offers out there, that’s fabulous.

Yeah, obviously this is a financial wisdom, financial empowerment show. And if you are listening, put this in your budget for next year, if it’s not in your budget already to be able to fund this. And you said it too, Jennifer, coming into the summer, you can do some research and ask the facilities to see if there’s any way to help fund having children go to a camp, right? You said it was sliding scale, but there may be other resources that will help pay for those activities. Absolutely, sometimes organizations have scholarships and things like that.

If they might be, if the young people are a little older, you know, maybe 12, 13, whatever, and maybe, oh, I don’t wanna go to camp, but counselors and training are a great opportunity to get leadership skills and to earn a little money too. Then they are able to understand the finances. Okay, so I worked and I got this money, what am I gonna do with it? You know, if I’m gonna spend it all or am I gonna save it and things like that. And parents, you know, when they get home, they can do something with the kids or, you know, it’s because the daylight’s there so much longer for the summer.

I mean, just doing a thing where you can hide different things around the outdoors and tell them they have to go on a scavenger hunt, you know, just to get them out and everybody moving and enjoying the weather. Absolutely, listen, we’re up against a hard break. Would you mind staying over with us so we can talk about what’s coming up in the fall with Junior Achievement of Western Mass? Certainly. All right, we’re gonna take a quick break.

Show milestone break

We’ll be right back. This is The Cambridge Connection. Well, Tina Marie, here we are already in our mid-30s. Have you checked your license lately? You’re a far cry from being in your mid-30s.

No, no, not me, our show, The Cambridge Connection. We’re already more than halfway through our first year of great guests and need-to-know topics. Oh, I thought you were talking about your age. Well, that would take a lot longer than we have in this message, but what only takes a moment to share is that if you miss any of our shows on Saturdays on WHMP, don’t worry. com, click on podcasts, and all of our shows are listed there.

Plus, listeners can find us on all the podcast sites where they listen to their favorite podcast. Well, when I get home, I’m gonna listen to my favorite episode. And what’s that? You know, the one with me in it. Ha!

Fall plans for Junior Achievement

Welcome back, everyone. This is The Cambridge Connection. I’m your host, Gordon Oliver, here with my co-pilot, Tina Marie, and our special guest, Jennifer Connolly from Junior Achievement at Western Mass. And Jennifer, thanks for joining us. And obviously, the pandemic has done some things to kind of...

Change the way we do what we do and how you do what you do at Junior Achievement and how you help kids in the schools. So in Western Mass, what’s happening this fall? This fall, we will have one of our big events. Hopefully, we’re planning an in-person event, the JA Stock Market Challenge. And this is a program where the students are, when they’re in school, they’re learning what is a stock, they’re doing simulations online, they’re understanding what a dividend is, and they’re all in preparation for coming together at a local, this year, we’re going to be at the theaters in Springfield.

And they will get, pretend, I always have to say pretend, a million dollars, because ... Yes. Sign me up. It’s like, so they get a million dollars, they get to play through the stock market, they get probably 50 to 60 different stocks, and a lot of them are local stocks. They’ll see Savage Arms, they’ll see Country Bank, they’ll see St.

Germain, and things like that. These are our sponsors, who like TD Bank and Webster Bank, and things like that. But they also have other made-up stocks, like it might be Zoople instead of Google, or Orange instead of Apple. And they get to trade 60 days of trading, but the caveat is, every day is only 60 seconds. A lot of team building, a lot of math, a lot of communication skills.

So that’s coming November 10th. org and get information for that. We are very fortunate. We have a very supportive community of business people and foundations that want to see our young people succeed, and that’s what they do. We’re having a new program called JA Inspire Virtual that will be a program where the students can go into this virtual world.

They will have businesses that they can look at, businesses can put up a video about themselves, talk about their jobs, talk about careers in their different fields. And it’ll give the students, it’s like they have an avatar, and they look like they’re going into a great big convention center. And we’ll have live webinars, and so that’ll be in October, and we’re looking forward to that being able to showcase careers and businesses in our Western Mass region, so that young people know this is a great place to live, to go to school, to grow up, and to start your own family and create your own life. So just on a side note, Tina Marie has donated her time in some of these events. I have as well.

Can people that are listening and saying, hey, I want to get involved in helping these things go on, can volunteers reach out and see if they can offer some time to help pull some of these events off? Absolutely. Absolutely. org, and there’s places where you can go and say I’m interested, and you leave your name and your email address, and I absolutely reach right back out to you and see what it is that you might be interested in doing. Hopefully we’ll have volunteers going back in the classroom.

Maybe your business wants to be part of the virtual Inspire, so a lot of different opportunities to get involved and to really make a difference in a young person’s life. That’s what we found out this year is that our young people didn’t really know the community, especially after the pandemic, didn’t understand the community really cared about them, and that people were willing to spend their time helping them learn different things. You can change people’s lives. Yeah. You know, and I just want to add, something recently happened with me.

Credit card lessons for young people

I was actually speaking with a young lady outside of work who is entering into her first year of college in the fall, and she says to me, you know, my parents said I should really get a credit card. What is it? And I kind of stepped back for a second and thought, wow, why would they tell her to get a credit card and not explain to her exactly what it is? So I thought so, I thought so, but I had a long talk with her. I did my best to explain, you know, how they work, what to do.

And it just kind of caught me by surprise thinking that these kids that are entering into college that simply don’t understand how credit works, and it’s something we’ve always talked about. We always have been talking about explaining to our youth. In high school, I wasn’t taught to balance a checkbook. We talked about this before. So I just feel that that’s great that you have the financial education along with everything else that you guys have to offer.

It’s so important. And it just, it really amazed me that she didn’t know, you know, what interest was. She thought that she didn’t have to pay it back. Oh, I can just spend a thousand dollars. No, that’s not how it works.

So I really commend you for that. And I actually do enjoy being a part of that, too. That’s where I’ve donated a lot of my time and into the high schools with the financial education. So sign me up for the next one. Okay.

Oh, absolutely. We can’t wait to do those again. The teen reality fairs really is eye opening for the young people because all of a sudden they have a credit score and they have a limited amount of money and, you know, they have to go around and build a budget and they’re looking at, wow, I don’t have enough money. Oh, go get a part time job because that’s how people do it. I believe I told this story once before quickly.

I did have a student come to me and as I was talking with him, he didn’t have any rent or any utilities that he was paying. And I said, well, what are you doing? And he said, well, I have a gym membership in a car. I sleep in my car and I take a shower at the gym. Yep.

Well, I mean, I, hey, that’s what you want to do. That’s priority. Right. You know, he was thinking. After a while that’ll be kind of old.

You know, I do speaking engagements at employers and other areas and when we bring up the algorithm math of a credit card and how people can be stuck paying them, that myth that it could take you 20 to 30 years to pay your debt off if you’re following the minimum payments, it’s not a myth at all. And when people get tight, they can only make the minimum payment. So teaching our youth how they work for your example, Tina Marie, that’s why we have this show. That’s why we continue to bring up this information to continuously compel people to learn more about being financially literate. And it’s not just children.

New learning center announcement

There are plenty of adults that don’t understand how this all works as well. That’s true. So, Jennifer, we’re just about out of time. If you could quickly just, I know you’re humble, but I know you’re incredible as well. So tell us what’s going on at your home office.

We are actually kicking off a campaign to renovate our office, to create what we’re calling the Center for Leadership, Innovation, and Career Exploration. So click. And we will, this will allow us by fall of 2023 to bring students into our actual office to do webinars, seminars, and have them go through and do a manufacturing piece to learn about manufacturing, to do an AV with podcasting and video equipment, to do some career exploration, and then be open a little later after school and things to, if they want to expand their knowledge and run a company and things like that. So we’re very excited. We’re taking pieces that we’re trying out now in this year, like the JA Virtual Inspire, some webinars, bringing some students in to kind of cement our programming for this opportunity.

So... We’re very excited, it’s kind of going back to our roots where students actually could come to us and do some learning. And so we’ll be working in schools but also have an office space where, a learning center where students can come in and learn. You doing great things, it shocks me to death. You do such wonderful work, appreciate everything that you do to help our youth and Junior Achievement of Western Mass, all the board members, the volunteers, we can’t spend enough time investing in our youth.

Again, thank you for all the great work that you do and thanks for joining us on the show today. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you, Jennifer. I look forward to any time. Thank you.

We’ll love to have you back again, talking about the fall update. We’ll have you back. Terrific, thank you. Thanks, Jennifer. Enjoy your summer.

Bye-bye. All right, we’re going to take a quick break. We’ll be right back. This is The Cambridge Connection. Hi, I’m Jennifer Conley, President of Junior Achievement of Western Massachusetts, a local nonprofit that works with students in grades K through 12.

Junior Achievement sponsor message

Junior Achievement gives young people the skills they need to own their economic success, to plan their future, and to make smart academic choices. In today’s ever-changing world, JA empowers students to strive for innovation and leadership and to build communities defined by passion and purpose. This is all possible thanks to our many volunteers, teachers, and community partners who help students with financial literacy, work readiness, and entrepreneurship, bringing the real world to life in the classroom. org. Welcome back, everyone, to The Cambridge Connection.

Credit line decreases and closing thoughts

I’m your host, Gordon Oliver, here with my co-pilot, Tina Marie, where every week we navigate financial wisdom and empowerment information, obviously. Junior Achievement, amazing organization, helping our kids learn skills, be entrepreneurs, learn about money, managing money, financial literacy, et cetera. Can’t get enough of it. The children are the future. You can’t.

And why is that the case? We’re dealing with an economic downturn right now, and people have to learn that there’s certain things that may not be in your control. So I saw a article at the CFPB, and the title is, New Report Explores the Impact of Credit Line Decreases on Consumers. Why is that important? Oh, very important.

Well, actually, I don’t know if we even have enough time to get into this, but ironically enough, working as a credit counselor, a lot of consumers are experiencing that, and they don’t even realize it, where credit card companies are just simply decreasing their line of credit because they’re a credit risk. They did it when the pandemic hit, too. Right. And the reason being is they can do a periodic check on your credit report and see that you’re nearing your credit limits elsewhere, which it’s a red flag. So a credit card company- Affects your credit score.

Yes. Yep. Yeah. So you definitely want to keep on that. com, and always just check your balances.

It’s a good idea to review your credit score and make sure that everything’s in line. And if they do reduce your credit limit, it’s really out of your control. But just really try to keep those balances down, and I know that’s very difficult to do nowadays. Being in the know. You’ve got to know that it’s potentially a risk for you, and that’s why you’ve got to keep those balances low and keep your limits far from reaching or exceeding them when you’re using your credit cards.

As low as you can. With that, Tina, I’ve got a little quote for you, like I do every week. I’m excited. Financial illiteracy is not an issue unique to any population. It affects everyone, men and women, young and old, across all racial and socioeconomic lines.

No longer can we stand by and ignore this problem. The economic future of the United States depends on it. That’s from the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Literacy. Once again, we’re out of time. As you see, we have great experts come on this show to help you, our family, our friends, our listeners with all things financial wellness and financial empowerment.

Huge thank you to Leah and Lisa, our producers. com, click on podcasts, or you can search where you listen to your favorite podcast shows. Once again, we want you to be part of the conversation. org, or feel free to call 1-800-CAMBRIDGE.