Building the Business Owners of Tomorrow
Starting a new business and making it successful can be a demanding and daunting task, but 23 Middle School and Junior High student were up to the challenge.
Aftershock partnered with the Nebraska Community Foundation, Madison County Extension, Norfolk Area Chamber of Commerce, multiple business owners, and other community members to create the ESI Camp. In this program, the students were taught the basics of starting your own business. They learned about the challenges, costs, risks, and rewards, and many business owners came in as guest speakers to share their stories of success with business.
After learning some of the basics, the students brainstormed different products they could make and sell. Once the students decided what they wanted to create, they were given a budget of $50 to purchase their supplies. Students could spend as little as they wanted or all of the $50. The adults helped the students determine how much to charge for their product based on the cost of materials and the amount of time it took to create each product. The students worked diligently on their products both during Aftershock and at home. The culmination of their efforts was seen at the Sunset Plaza Mall on Thursday June 11th. All of the students set up a table to sell their products, some with great success.
On the final day of the ESI Camp, the students calculated their profit or loss. Although we would like to say every student made a profit, we all know that not every idea is successful the first time, and the students all learned valuable lessons from this camp. In the future, we expect to see many of these students running successful and profitable businesses.
A special thank you also goes out to the family members and other community members who stopped by the students' booths to purchase their products and support their efforts. Thank you for your dedication to the youth in our community.
