Students coping with the economic crisis may find themselves working long hours during the upcoming vacation, but students who choose to volunteer as well may find valuable opportunities that could help them in the long run.

Junior Achievement, a nonprofit education organization, often recruits student volunteers to teach economic principles to grade school and high school students in a five- to seven-session program, when college students have time off and primary and secondary schools do not.

Andrea Lichtenheld, operations manager at Junior Achievement Chicago, said the program focuses on building leadership abilities for all majors.

“It’s a great resume builder, and it gets your foot in the door at many businesses,” Lichtenheld said. “Even if you’re not majoring in business or education, the material is easy to learn and any student can pick it up and teach kids.”

Lichtenheld said the program stresses a two- to three-hour preparation session in addition to the teaching sessions. She said much of the material for younger students emphasizes pictures and colorful imagery in order to teach simple business concepts.

“One of our second-grade projects lets the kids create their own doughnuts,” Lichtenheld said.

Larry Messing, president of the Rock River Valley division, said the first-grade students get to participate in planning a city and placing buildings and shops in their city.

“They get to learn about what kinds of places sell what,” Messing said.

Jill Applebee, president of the East-Central Illinois division in Decatur, said kindergarten students start with hands-on experiments and a story read by the volunteer, while some older students learn about checkbooks and how the business world works.

“It’s a well-known national name,” Applebee said. “It’s great to work with the children and brighten their day.”

Applebee said that while most programs are five weeks in length, volunteers can coordinate with teachers to shorten the program into a more manageable time, like one session a day for a week or taking half a day to teach all of the required materials.

Messing said many volunteers take advantage of the flexibility.

“About 99.9 percent of our volunteers have jobs and work in classes throughout the day,” Messing said.

Students at the University said that for the most part, their plans would be focused on working instead of looking for volunteering.

Megan Hallaren, junior in Business, said she planned to work during break instead of looking for volunteer work.

Lauren Hartwig, junior in Business, said she remembered Junior Achievement representatives from elementary school.

“It was a good experience, but I think it would be more suitable to volunteer as an education major,” Hartwig said.

Hartwig said she would probably search for other volunteer opportunities.

Scott Farley, director of development in the Chicago division, said the program emphasizes three things: financial literacy, workforce readiness and entrepreneurship.

“Teachers can teach you about economics, but it’s not much fun out of a book,” Farley said. “Students respond pretty well to outside volunteers though. They learn without realizing they’re learning.”