Feature Friday: Zerubbabel Y.

Today's ‪#‎featurefriday‬ is Zerubbabel Y., a freshman in our JA-MBA program at Banneker High School.

With a name like Zerubbabel, you know he must be an interesting 15 year old! What some people may not know though, is that his dream is to become a video game designer. He is also the tallest person in his house, an accomplishment among 6 siblings, plus his parents.

Zerubbabel is one of more than 120 students that make up the freshman class at the JA-MBA at Banneker High School. Stay tuned to meet more of these driven future-leaders!

Feature Friday: Jabarri Weston

As we kick off a new year, we’re starting a Feature Friday to help our supporters get to know JA better! Each week we’ll feature a student, sponsor, volunteer or staff member that helps shape our organization’s story.

For our first ‪#‎featurefriday‬ we have Jabarri Weston. He is a senior at Chamblee High School who currently serves as President of Gadget Tree, the JA Fellows company at the IHG host site.

Jabarri, shown here with Tyler Mccain, has worked his way up the leadership ladder within JA Fellows, and credits Tyler for helping him do so.

"He saw potential in me that I didn't see in myself and since that time, he has taught me the skills to be a leader. Tyler, a science aficionado, used rules from Isaac Newton, specifically his 2nd Law of Motion (for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction) to make the motto "Fail Harder," because the harder we fail at something, the better we will succeed."

What a year!

It was a wonderful 2015 at JA of Georgia. Here are a few of the things we accomplished with the help of our volunteers and sponsors:

• Launch of the JA-MBA, an immersive high school experience that meets traditional common core standards through experiential and interdisciplinary studies. The first freshman class at Banneker High School is made up of 130 students who want a more authentic high school experience; to leave with something greater than a diploma.

• Opened our second JA Discovery Center, bringing the impact of these centers to 60 % of middle school students state wide. The JA Discovery Center at Gwinnett will serve more than 25,000 middle school students a year, thanks to partnerships with over 100 companies and organizations in the Gwinnett community.

• Continued our JA High School Leaders program that will serve over 65,000 students this year.

• JA Fellows is back with driven students and great products.