CREDIT: PHOTOS PROVIDED BY JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT LONDON AND DISTRICT
The Lawrence Kinlin School of Business and Junior Achievement (JA) London and District are finalists in the Community Collaboration category in the 2018 Pillar Community Innovation Awards.

Fanshawe's Lawrence Kinlin School of Business, in partnership with Junior Achievement (JA) London and District, for a 2018 Pillar Community Innovation award given by Pillar Nonprofit Network.

The Kinlin School has been chosen as a finalist in the Community Collaboration category for work that has been done between the school and JA.

According to the Pillar Nonprofit Network website, the Pillar Community Innovation awards celebrate the investment that individuals, organizations and enterprises do to have a positive community impact. There are three categories within the awards including innovation, leadership, impact, collaboration and community choice. According to the JA Canada website, the goal of the organization is to provide opportunities for youth to learn financial literacy, entrepreneurship and work readiness skills to inspire and prepare them for success. JA is Canada's largest youth business education organization and has been operating since 1955.

Mary Pierce, dean of the Lawrence Kinlin School of Business, said that being nominated for this award would give recognition to the unique and innovative collaboration between the school and JA.

“It would be a real honour [to win the award] and we are hoping to bring some attention to the issues that we are trying to highlight around experiential learning and financial literacy,” Pierce said. “It would certainly place a nice emphasis on the importance of community partnerships between Fanshawe and other organizations.”

Pierce went on to outline how the Kinlin School's partnership with JA works and how the collaboration benefits a number of people and organizations. “The program that has been nominated for the Community Collaboration award is where our finance students deliver the financial literacy program in the elementary schools in grade give to seven,” Pierce said. “It involves over 1000 elementary schools and 160 of our students each year get to have the experience of delivering these programs in schools.”

The other organizations that are finalists in the community collaboration category include London Suicide Prevention Council and London's Temporary Overdose Prevention site.

“I think that all the nominees are really great and there are some great partnerships but I do think that our program is really unique in that it has been set up to be sustainable year after year,” Pierce said. “The other programs are more of a oneoff program and not so much an ongoing program.”

The Kinlin School is constantly developing new programs to create a better experience for students and set themselves apart from other business schools and organizations.

“The Kinlin School is the largest college business school outside of the greater Toronto area,” Pierce said. “Some things that are unique about the Kinlin School include the mix of programming including four Bachelor of Commerce degrees and collaborative programs with Western in Finance, a wide range of graduate and undergraduate programs and the community consultancy program.”

The award ceremony will take place at the London Convention Centre on Nov. 22 from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Tickets are available at the Pillar Nonprofit Network website starting at $62. Voting is taking place online at pillarnonprofit.ca/communityinnovationawards until November 2. To learn more about Junior Achievement in London and district, visit jacanada.org/london-district.