BizTown community simulation breaks ground in South Fayette

A new town is under construction in Allegheny County.

What makes this future community unique? It will be run by 10- to 12-year-olds.

Nestled inside Abele Business Park in South Fayette Township, Junior Achievement of Western Pennsylvania broke ground on April 4 on JA BizTown, a 10,000-square-foot interactive community simulation where fourth- to sixth-graders from a 50-county radius will have the chance to learn financial literacy, money management, entrepreneurship and how a community works. BizTown will serve more than 12,000 students each year.

“It’s really a dress rehearsal for life,” said Dennis Gilfoyle, the organization’s president and CEO.

The open space inside the building, now featuring grey walls and tile flooring, will be transformed by fall into a fully operating town lined with storefronts of actual Pittsburgh-area businesses. There will be a town center and students will be elected by their peers to run the community.

Prior to their one-day field trip, students will spend nine hours of class time utilizing JA curriculum to learn about the community and business world. The town also will be open for summer camps.

For students, real world experience is important, said Julie Franczyk, Chartiers Valley Intermediate School principal.

“They’re going to actually get to see what is really out there,” she said. “Our kids have never experienced anything like this.”

Students will interview for jobs, out of a bank of 125, that uses information from a report from the Allegheny Conference on Community Development that identifies workforce needs in the area. They could be a manager at Giant Eagle or Gordon Food Service or CEO of Burns & Scalo Real Estate or Clearview Federal Credit Union.

“We’re going to learn how to own businesses and what it’s like to have real jobs and the different responsibilities of different jobs,” said Jenna Sexton, 11, a fifth grader in Chartiers Valley who was named the first kid president and CEO of Vector Security, Inc. at BizTown.

At the groundbreaking she got to meet her real life counterpart, Pamela Petrow.

Maria Gabriel, 10, a fifth-grader at South Fayette Intermediate School, was named the first mayor of BizTown. She was given a key to the city from South Fayette commissioner Gwen Rodi.

“I think we’re going to learn how to depend on each other and ourselves as kids, because usually there’s an adult helping, but when we get to go by ourselves, it teaches us skills that we need to learn in life,” she said.

Students will be paid three times throughout the day they spend in BizTown and will learn to use the bank and follow town rules to ensure they aren’t cited by the police for chewing gum or cussing, Gilfoyle said.

“The biggest thing they’re going to learn is practical workforce skills and those things include everything from working as a team to problem solving (and) critical thinking,” he said.

BizTown is a national Junior Achievement program. This will be the 39th one in the country, Gilfoyle said.

Junior Achievement of Western Pennsylvania set out with an initial goal of raising $2.3 million for the project, said Carol Jackson, chair and CEO of HarbisonWalker International, Inc. and JA BizTown capital campaign chair. They’ve already exceeded that, bringing in $2.8 million. They’ve now raised their goal to $3.5 million.

At least 17 businesses have signed on for a storefront in the new town. Others contributed in other ways. And, there’s still room for more.