Kemner-Iott teaches about economy

Published 2:27 pm Thursday, March 12, 2009

By Staff
DOWGIAC – Kemner-Iott Agency of Cass County is working today to improve tomorrow's economy.
Volunteer Patti Badner, an insurance agent for more than 10 years, partnered with Junior Achievement and Mrs. Margie Brosnan's fifth grade class at Justus Gage Elementary School in Dowagiac to help prepare young people for the real world.
She showed them how to generate wealth and effectively manage it, how to create jobs which make their communities more robust and how to apply entrepreneurial thinking to the workplace.
Students put these lessons into action and learned the value of contributing to their communities.
Students spent five weeks learning about the different forms of business (sole proprietor, corporation, partnership), doing mock interviews, simulating a unit and mass production line to assemble pens and how advertising can be used in different forms to sell their product or services.
The class was divided into seven "companies."
Each created a business name, address, logo and ads that contained how the product or service worked and the cost.