Hudson’s First & Main becomes a “Shark Tank” on Friday, May 18 at 3 p.m. when Hudson High School Business
Club students set up shop and compete to sell Crazy But True Popcorn. Eight teams of students worked up a
business plan to sell the gourmet popcorn. The most profitable team will win.
COSE will help judge business plans
submitted by the school’s Business Essentials students, and the winning idea
will be funded by Paul Hoogenboom,
CIO of RPM.
“We have to teach students what it
takes to be an entrepreneur, how you become successful, that your failures are just
as important as your successes, that it’s
critical to make connections,” says Betty
Banks-Burke, who teaches the entrepreneurship and business courses at Hudson
High School and serves as an adviser of
the Hudson Youth Entrepreneurs club.
As business owners and community
leaders, we must young people the building
blocks for entrepreneurism early—the skills
in financial literacy, for example. “Not every
kid is going to be an entrepreneur, but they
do need to know about it,” says Deborah
Hoover, president and CEO at the Burton
D. Morgan Foundation. “It shows them
why math and economics is important,
why it’s important to learn about your city,
the government and how it works.”
Ohio, an experiential learning program
that teaches youth how to start, own and
operate their own business.
for opportunities to volunteer at school
business clubs or organizations that foster
entrepreneurship.
“We talk about competing globally and
nationally, but what kind of tools and exposure are we giving kids at a young age?”
Konefal asks. Give a student an opportunity to shadow you at your business for a
day. Offer to speak in the classroom about
your business and how you got started.
Encourage ideas. Teaching young people
how to solve problems in creative ways gives
them perspective on how entrepreneurs
think. Then, when they confront a “gap”
in their daily lives—something that would
make life easier, better, more exciting—they
might consider how they can invent a
solution. “Entrepreneurism teaches them to
look at the world in a proactive way and see
how they can be a problem solver and not
just a consumer,” Hoover says.
Like entrepreneurs who are passionate
about their ideas, young people come to
the table with a refreshing can-do attitude
that should be encouraged.
“These kids are masterminds—no one
has ever told them, ‘no,’” Banks-Burke
says. “They come up with ideas that wow
me every day.”
Teach them to never give up. “An entrepreneur is the sort of person who, when
someone says ‘no,’ will go over it, around
it, above it—they never give up, they
find a way,” says Carol Rivchun of Youth
Opportunities Unlimited (Y.O.U.). The
at-risk youth who are part of the E CITY
program, which is structured based on the
belief that many teens have the mental
tenacity, street smart and creativity to
start a business.
Through the program’s Biz Camps,
students learn the basics and are given a
$50 stipend to start and run their own
business. “It inspires them as they get
into the program and meet other entrepreneurs,” Rivchun says, adding that
business-owner volunteers are critical to
the company’s success and any entrepreneur can contact Y.O.U. to find out how
to get involved.
Give them exposure. “In order to understand entrepreneurism, you have to give it
a try,” Hoover says. The Burton D. Morgan Foundation does this by sponsoring
a national Lemonade Day in Northeast
Choose an apprentice. “These students are
potential employees, potential interns,”
says Carolyn Konefal, president of the
Hudson Chamber of Commerce. Look
Bring out their passion. “I tell students
every day, ‘If you don’t work on bringing
out your passion, someone else will take it
over,’” Banks-Burke says. She wants students to be bold, speak with confidence—
be themselves. It’s about having a niche as
an individual, she explains. ●
