Catholic sixth-graders give back through business

Three teams of sixth-grade gifted and talented students at Immaculate Conception School in Fort Smith sold products from youth entrepreneurship projects during Catholic Schools Week the last week of January.
Three teams of sixth-grade gifted and talented students at Immaculate Conception School in Fort Smith sold products from youth entrepreneurship projects during Catholic Schools Week the last week of January.

FORT SMITH — When Immaculate Conception School’s sixth-grade gifted and talented students participated in a youth entrepreneur business development project last winter, they added a stewardship component to their plan.

The three business teams — two teams of two girls and one team of three boys — proposed splitting their profits with local charitable organizations.

The students worked in small groups to develop and market a business concept. The project promotes and fosters the development of youth entrepreneurs. Each group was provided a startup loan and paid expenses back from profits.

Normally the school enters teams into the Young Entrepreneur Showcase in Little Rock but this year no teams were entered, adviser Ann Cannon said.

The team of Will Green, Braeden Hindley and Drew Cannon chose the Buddy Smith Home as their charity. After learning that 25 percent of homeless Americans and 20 percent of the homeless in Fort Smith were veterans, “we wanted to help retired veterans who came back from the war to get back on their feet,” Cannon said.

To promote their theme, the boys named their business Paracord Planet and made paracord bracelets, necklaces and keychains.

“We chose paracords because paracords are used by the military,” Green said.

Sophia Underwood and Claire Watts, inspired by a girl in their school who has leukemia, chose to help the Donald W. Reynolds Cancer Support House after learning about the programs it sponsors for cancer patients of all ages.

“We wanted to manufacture a project that represented life, and so we made botanical babysitters,” Watts said. “We painted wine bottles, filled them with water, put straws inside and placed them upside down in planters. A full wine bottle will keep a plant watered for two weeks.”

Anastasia Goodwin and Lauren Vrazel wanted to support the Sebastian County Humane Society and decided to decorate dog collars.

“We both love animals and wanted to help them find good homes,” Vrazel said.

The students learned that starting a business required laying groundwork.

“We needed to write a mission statement for our business, choose names, design logos and make a financial plan, estimating the cost of materials and advertising to determine a price that would give us a profit to share with our charities,” Underwood said.

They made their products at night at a team member’s home just in time to sell them on Grandparents Day in January. They also took orders from Immaculate Conception families and students.

At the conclusion of the project, Ann Cannon took all three groups to visit the charities they’d supported to present the money they’d raised. They not only got to tour the facilities but also had a chance to see the programs they supported in action.

In all, $764 was raised for the local charities.

“When we presented our checks to each group, the directors seemed surprised and really appreciated it,” Watts said. “We were happy to see that our earnings were supporting such good causes.”

Prior to working on this project, almost none of the students had much experience operating a business. All of the participants developed respect for business owners and how much work it takes to start a business. Underwood aspires to own a business when she grows up but thinks franchising might be the best approach.

“The experience of planning a business and plotting out all their steps was beneficial to all the students,” Ann Cannon said.

Maryanne Meyerriecks

Maryanne Meyerriecks joined Arkansas Catholic in 2006 as the River Valley correspondent. She is a member of Christ the King Church in Fort Smith, a Benedictine oblate and volunteer at St. Scholastica Monastery.

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