Young Entrepreneurs

Every summer the young people in the HomeBridge Community have the opportunity to gain employability skills by taking part in our Youth Farmers Market program.  This year had the largest group of participants to date with 12 young people taking part, and they took this entrepreneurial opportunity to the next level.

This week-long program takes the young people through the process of setting up and running their own farmers market.  It starts off with an orientation session to let everyone know what the week will look like, and includes mock interviews and each participant signing a contract that ensures they understand the commitment and expectations for the program.  With the support and guidance of HomeBridge’s Summer Recreation Activity Coordinator and Program Activity Coordinator they then travel to the Annapolis Valley for a full day to harvest and gather produce.  This involves great discussions on what types of produce they should purchase for re-sale and important lessons about cost verses profit.  The produce then needs to be sorted, weighed and packaged for sale, pricing needs to be determined and signage made.  While preparing for their public market, this is when some of the young people really embraced their entrepreneurial spirit as they were thinking of what more they could offer their customers.

Several of the young people spent their free time making crafts and jewelry, and embellishing picture frames to sell. Others put their culinary skills to use, baking sweet treats, and one participant even took cuttings from a massive houseplant he has been nurturing and printed up information on the plant and how to grow the cutting so he could sell those. In the end, the sold out of a lot of their produce and did quite well with the BBQ as well, but the young people were most excited about how much of their own creations they sold. They were all very excited about their success and one of the youth decided that they should pay it forward by donating the remaining produce to Souls Harbour Mission.

Every young person that participate ended the program with experience they can list on their resume, a personal report about their strengths and weaknesses during the program, and money they earned for their efforts.  It was an incredibly valuable experience for everyone involved. Thank you to the Youth Development Initiative for funding this meaningful program and to everyone who dropped by and supported the youth in their entrepreneurial venture.