Young Entrepreneurs Spent Summer Building Businesses, Learn Valuable Life Lessons

During the summer, some children stay up late, some play video games, and some may even sleep the break away. Instead, eight students from Ellen Ochoa Elementary dedicated their time to building businesses of their own.

A group of young entrepreneurs showed off their new businesses Thursday at the school's Back to School Bash.

The program, called "Early Entrepreneurship," was created by Loveworks Leadership. They are a non-profit organization aiming to inspire innovation among younger generations by teaching them business principles they can use in many aspects in life.

Community Schools Coordinator, Derek Frey, said Ochoa Elementary is the first school in eastern Oklahoma to be selected to run the program.

"They piloted their first program with us this summer during our June summer programming these eight students went through their program," Frey said.

Estefany Godinez and her classmates, Giovanni Ibarra, and Gabriel Angel created Adventurous Slime to provide stress relief and to have fun. They said the profits are just an added bonus.

"I actually didn't want much money. I just wanted to be in a fun program," Godinez said.

Through Early Entrepreneurship, students learn teamwork, confidence, and effective ways to deliver criticism to their peers.

Student Aria Andrus said it's a lot of work, but with good planning, anyone can do it.

"First you have to think about what you're going to do. then you got to think of your name and stuff. but then after you just have to think what your profits are going to be what your cost per products going to be," Andrus said.

Each student created their business based on their own personal experiences. Aliyah Hollis said her business, Baking and Making, is a tribute to her grandmother.

"My grandma, before she passed away, she used to make me these cookies and they were super good," Hollis said.

Frey said the program is beneficial because it teaches lessons outside of the typical curriculum allowing students to earn a new sense of accomplishment.

"The Reward of working with each other, the reward of seeing their ideas play up into something physical - their product their prototypes - and the reward of seeing others celebrate what they're doing, I think, probably was the greatest that they got to walk away with," Frey said.

Opportunity to join the program is now being expanded to all 4th and 5th graders at Ellen Ochoa Elementary as an after-school program.