Teaching and Cultivating our Youth to Be Entrepreneurs

One of the strategies of Stafford County Economic Development to obtain growth and foster a spirit of 
entrepreneurship, is to focus on our youth by teaching them the fundamentals of entrepreneurship. There is a world of opportunity out there for them and we want your kids to know that they are not limited in what they can achieve. 

We have been partnering with the LIFE After-School Program and the STARS After-School Program to offer weekly entrepreneurship class. We began implementing this year-long program in the fall of 2013. During the program, I introduce the students to what entrepreneurship is, what it takes to be an entrepreneur, give examples of youth their own age who have successful business, and introduce them to key concepts, and basic financials. 

On Monday, March 9th, we had the privilege and opportunity to take the Stafford STARS After-School Entrepreneurship Club to Wichita to experience  the college atmosphere through touring Wichita State, to learn about the possibilities business and entrepreneurship has to offer by visiting the trade lab located at the Wichita Sate business school and to recognized other's strengths and abilities by working through team building and strength recognition activities as prepared by the Wichita State University Center for Entrepreneurship.  We ended the tour on a high note with a visit to the West-side All Star Sports. The tour was both educational and fun! The managers at All Star did a wonderful job presented basic business concepts in a fun manner. Some of the main concepts that the students learned that day were that costs matter, you must figure costs first to decide on a price that will cover costs and make a reasonable profit. We learned that sometimes it is important to have a product or business attraction that will bring customers in the door even if it does not make a profit. It is important to know what products make money and which ones do and whether they are still important to the organization or not. We learned that safety of customers and employees should be a top concern. A business must make a priority to keep everyone safe and healthy. We learned so much and are very thankful to each and everyone who made the day a success. Take a look at some of the pictures below to see a little bit of what the tour was like!