On Tuesday, October 10, 23 employees from Host Hotels & Resorts visited Junior Achievement’s newest Finance Park in Montgomery County—a “mini-city” with storefronts set up to help students learn about personal finance. The first storefront volunteers saw when they entered the facility was a mock-hotel lobby with a familiar logo, designed by our JA Storefront Design Committee! As a proud sponsor, Host had the opportunity to design and buildout the entertainment storefront. Since our storefront would be where students will learn how to itemize entertainment in their budgets, the committee conceived the idea of a hotel lobby to represent both Host and the variety of entertainment in and near hotels.

Host has volunteered with Junior Achievement since 2014 and we were one of the first groups to volunteer at this new facility. Our employees—many who are veteran JA volunteers—helped 115 seventh graders from Cabin John Middle School work through simulations on a tablet that assigned each student a career, salary, credit score, debt, family and financial obligations. Students traveled to the different storefronts to research various expenses such as a mortgage, car, clothes, groceries and insurance before preparing their budgets. When it came time to make spending decisions within the budgets they had prepared, many students quickly learned that they would have to spend more than they budgeted in order to buy everything they needed or wanted. With a debit card in hand, students returned to the storefronts to make their purchases. After final discussions about lessons learned during the simulation process, students presented the volunteers with hand-signed cards thanking them for their time.

Learn more about Host's Corporate Responsibility program.