ROCHESTER — Downtown Rochester was bustling with activity June 3, as community members flocked to businesses involving banking, finance, construction, manufacturing, health care, utilities and dining.
In reality, the venues were scaled-down replicas and the people occupying them were diocesan elementary-school students. However, the knowledge they gained was anything but kid stuff.
Rather, the youths engaged in hands-on activities designed to enhance vital lifelong skills related to financial well-being, work readiness, entrepreneurship and career awareness.
Such is the unique nature of BizTown, located in the Paychex Junior Achievement Discovery Center at Kodak Center in northern Rochester. On June 3, the facility hosted groups from St. Rita School, Webster; St. Agnes, Avon; St. Pius Tenth, Chili; St. Mary, Canandaigua; St. Lawrence, Greece; and St. Francis-St. Stephen, Geneva.
BizTown features 19 stations that simulate actual businesses and organizations in the Rochester area. Jennifer LeFrois, principal of St. Rita, said the immersive experience at Biz-Town offers a fun, effective way for young people to learn concepts they’ll need as adults.
“We are able to give our students a real-life working experience and being citizens of the City of Rochester at such a young age,” she said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity.”
Young people enjoy experiencing replica of downtown Rochester
The nearly 20,000-square-foot BizTown facility, housed in a former gymnasium, opened in January 2024. According to Patricia Leva, president/CEO of Junior Achievement of Central Upstate New York, BizTown will be visited in 2026 by up to 12,000 Rochester-area students in grades 4 through 6.
Young guests on June 3 were divided into several groups. Each one was charged with planning, starting and running a business successfully while emphasizing teamwork, communication and problem-solving. Among their tasks were to develop a product; get the necessary start-up funding to produce it; and then market their product to the community.
Also as part of the BizTown experience, students served in such roles as mayors, CEOs and police officers. Several young people walked around BizTown sporting business suits, hard hats and hospital-worker attire. Meanwhile, the stations they visited offered helpful hints from displays and adult volunteers. For instance, signs posted at one station contained banking-related details on investments, savings accounts and how to save up for a phone, first car or college.
“I think it’s really, really cool — really fun,” Antonette Volpe, who served as a mayor for the day, said about her BizTown experience. She is a June 2026 graduate of St. Rita School.
“I think it’s really amazing. It’s just like how it would be in the future,” added Mary Schlueter, a recent graduate of St. Agnes School.
Diocese of Rochester students acquire key concepts for adulthood
For the participating schools June 3, BizTown marked the culmination of yearlong classroom sessions in 2025-26 involving finances, careers, and rights and responsibilities as citizens, workers and consumers. Coursework was developed in conjunction with Junior Achievement, an international nonprofit organization that strives to prepare young people for future career and financial success.
According to LeFrois, Antonette and Mary, topics covered during the school year included balancing a checkbook and understanding credit and debit cards, deposit tickets, loans, compound interest and paycheck withholdings. Mary said that having this knowledge will help remind her “how to keep track of your money and not waste it.” A key emphasis in her classroom instruction, she added, was the importance of financial self-discipline: “Don’t spend money on everything we want.”
Saying that Junior Achievement conveys its concepts to young people “in a way that will really stick with them,” LeFrois noted that acquiring this information now will eventually help students face such challenges as student loan debt and finding suitable employment.
“We know this is going to help us in later life. We’ll be better prepared,” Antonette agreed.
Tags: Catholic Schools, Monroe County East, Monroe County West
