Entrepreneuring youth
-
Tyree Walton ,13, makes a 30-second pitch for his "Lil Brother" clothing line, July 14, 2011, during a class held during a five-week daily business camp organized by the nonprofit group, Entrepreneuring Youth, at the Manchester Academic Charter School
Share with others:
It was a setting familiar to most college business students: Precious Tucker stood at the front of a classroom, delivering her elevator pitch.
The elevator pitch is that classic speech designed to let entrepreneurs explain their business plans to executives in 30 seconds or less -- if necessary, as the lesson goes, within the time constraints of an elevator ride.
In this case, the audience wasn't a room full of business executives -- it was a class of 10 middle school students. But Precious, at 14 years old, is in fact an entrepreneur. She, along with the students who were watching her presentation at the Manchester Academic Charter School, is part of a summer program associated with Entrepreneuring Youth, a Pittsburgh nonprofit that offers entrepreneurship classes to underprivileged youth and is an affiliate of a national program, the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship.
Precious, of the North Side, is the CEO and sole employee of a business that makes and sells homemade soaps and bath salts, specializing in products for people with sensitive skin. She's made around $2,000 since she started the business two years ago with the help of the program.
Her classmates' businesses covered a broad range of products: from T-shirts and customized candles to hamburgers and original music.
The basic idea behind Entrepreneuring Youth is simple: Showing youngsters how to be entrepreneurs shows them how to be better students, better workers and better consumers.
"There is equal dignity in all work," said Jerry Cozewith, president of Entrepreneuring Youth. "But I suggest that young people should never be content to know how to flip hamburgers; they should learn how to own the store."
First Published July 20, 2011 12:00 am
