For these students, as well as other participants in the Young Entrepreneurial Stewardship (YES) program of local community development group Western Sustainability Exchange (WSE), the weekly venue at the market is just one benefit of their training.
Hosted by MSU 4-H, Western Sustainability Exchange, Junior Achievement, and LINKS for Learning, a week-long “Biz Kid$” camp commenced June 28 and featured gardening, healthy eating, crafts, and a crash course in both the social and economic aspects of doing business as part of a community.Junior Achievement, a non-profit focusing on economic education for children, provided part of the curriculum materials and teaching staff Brad Benne to coach young learners in the importance of community to business and the responsibility of business to community.
The Biz Kid$ programs for classroom use are a PBS financial literacy program, and come with lesson plans for teaching principles for real-life problem-solving and critical thinking skills.Some of the other nuts and bolts of business theory, adaptation of several curricula and age-geared activities enlivened the camp further with the instruction of Western Sustainability Exchange’s (WSE) Tyrrell Hibbard and Farmer’s market master Rob Bankston.
Activities designed to simulate business principles in the class setting led some students to new creative exploits by brainstorming their business plans. The results varied widely: One student invented the “Laugh A Lot Shop” and another an elk-horn product business, along with more traditional cupcakes and cookie sales. The Biz Kid$ program provided some visual examples of business in practice. “This guy sold worm poop,” a student recalls. “It’s good for gardens.”Livingston Center for Art and Culture’s Beth Gregory stopped by one class to demonstrate a summer camp classic with a twist. As students learned to make beaded macramé bracelets, they also broke down the costs of twine and beads, discussed benefits of buying bulk quantities, and figured the prices they would charge for an individual bracelet if they were to market the jewelry. “It showed them what goes into making something you can sell,” says WSE’s Hibbard.
The ongoing availability of Hibbard’s services as “Youth Booth Business Consultant” is an asset of WSE’s YES program, which also seeks to infuse the teaching of youth economic education with sustainable business practices. “We talk about reducing waste, reducing energy consumption, using recycled or reclaimed materials in a product if possible, and community giving,” Hibbard explains of the “sustainability” piece of the program.“We talk about the importance of philanthropy and how it’s good for marketing because it builds loyal customers, and how it’s good for business because it’s good for the community,” he says.
Youth Booth fees of $2.25 per week are collected for each booth at the Farmer’s Market, and saved throughout the season. Market Master Rob Bankston says the organization holds the booth fees through the season and the young entrepreneurs find a youth-oriented non-profit to which they donate the sum total of their fees.At season’s end a representative of the YES program presents an oversized check to the selected organization. “It shows them the cost of doing business but they learn their entrepreneurship contributes to the health and welfare of our community,” he says.
Some participants have taken the community activism portion of the market venue even further: last year, young business partners Amora McConnell and Stella Davis sold 325 dollars worth of birdhouses in one day, Bankston says, and gave all the proceeds to the local Stafford Animal Shelter.Through grant monies from camp sponsors of WSE, interested participants are also granted a “Biz in a Box” an initial business setup tool for children developed by a parent. It allows the young marketers to think through their enterprising ideas in every detail using worksheets and exercises designed to create an eventual business plan, complete with investor’s contracts. “They could take it to get startup capital for their cookie business,” says Hibbard. “So itís a pretty neat tool.”
For more information on the program, contact WSE at 222-0730.