Social Entrepreneurship – Now is the Time
Communities across North Carolina are successfully incorporating youth entrepreneurship into their economic development strategies. Community organizations and educators are partnering to offer youth entrepreneurship camps that build entrepreneurial skills in youth. This article shows examples of how communities are recognizing the importance of youth involvement in economic development.
Many youth between the ages of 9 and 18 attend youth entrepreneurship camps across North Carolina. A variety of camp activities include hearing from local entrepreneurs, taking part in hands-on activities to learn about their community, assessing their own skills, and creating a business idea. During the camp, youth complete activities that build creativity, teamwork, leadership, and financial literacy skills.
A remarkable trait of many camps is the partnering that takes place across the community to make the camps a reality. Several community partnerships include Community Colleges, Public Schools, local 4-H Cooperative Extension, and local Boys and Girls Clubs. Many camps are held on Community College campuses to help expose youth to the college environment.
From the very beginning, camp participants are encouraged to “think like an entrepreneur” by being creative and taking risks. The business teams are encouraged to think about what their community needs, what they do well, and what interests them. The teams quickly become competitive about who has the most creative and sometimes most outrageous business ideas. Unfailingly, the adults who serve as judges for the final presentations are impressed by the creativity of the ideas, the quality of the presentations, and the engagement of the students.
Many communities make the decision to select a theme for their entrepreneurship camp and encourage students to create a business around the theme. dgspeaks.com was delivered by a partnership that included Carteret Community College and the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum. With funding from the Conservation Fund, the College and Museum created an entrepreneurship camp that taught students about the heritage and history of Harker’s Island and the local community. Campers created businesses that reflected this heritage, including a tool that would help boats stuck on sand bars, and a nature center that would offer guided tours. One student commented, “My favorite part was learning what it took to make a business and manage a checkbook.”
