The drawing has a place of honor on the desk in Rick Fogelman’s office: It shows the sinking of the Titanic, from the movie, by Bryan, a second-grader from Jackson Elementary, who was part of the first class Rick and his Fogelman colleagues taught through JA in a Day.

“It was touching and so unexpected,” Rick said of the gift, which was labeled, “To Rick from Bryan.” “I had mentioned to him at one point during the day that I thought he was really a great artist.”

The drawing is a constant reminder for Fogelman, a Junior Achievement Board Member and Co-CEO of Fogelman Properties, of why he’s such a devoted supporter of Junior Achievement of Memphis and the Mid-South – and how special that first day at Jackson Elementary was.

“It gave us all such a good feeling about our schools,” he said.

Jackson Elementary is one of Junior Achievement’s Triple Play standouts, because their ongoing participation in JA in a Day gives their students a chance to encounter important economic concepts over three or more years, cementing their knowledge.

“We talked about what a community is, and what it takes to make a community successful,” Fogelman said. “We talked about occupations. There was a pizza-making game where you had to put ingredients on a pizza, but we also talked about where the ingredients come from and how you pay for the workers who make the pizza. Then you have to figure out how to sell it for more than it cost to make it.”

Learning the basic language of careers and the economy are the first steps in a commitment to layered learning that is built into all Junior Achievement programs, which is why it’s so important for schools to become long-term partners with JA and their volunteers.

That layered learning is powerful: The second-graders that Rick and his colleagues taught all those years ago have continued to learn more each school year about how to choose a career, understand money and build their community.

For Fogelman, his company’s multi-year commitment to volunteering for Junior Achievement is “a way of giving back, a way of fulfilling JA’s mission to make every child world ready,” he said.

“It really feels like we’re making an impact.”