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Student entrepreneurs getting ready for Home Show

The Young Entrepreneurs of SD28 are making products to sell at the Home and Outdoor Adventure Show
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École Red Bluff Lhtako Elementary School Grade 5 students Dylan Closs (left) and Kiara Hermanson have created a business called Laxxibuu Jewelry and will be selling bracelets, rings and earrings at the Quesnel Home and Outdoor Adventure Show this weekend. Lindsay Chung photo

This weekend’s Home and Outdoor Adventure Show will feature some of our community’s youngest entrepreneurs selling everything from baked dog treats and decorative dog collars to jewelry, vase holders and hanging plant holders.

The Young Entrepreneurs of School District 28 — students from Dean Morrow’s class at École Red Bluff Lhtako Elementary School and from Leah Morrow’s class at Parkland Elementary School — will be showcasing their businesses this Saturday and Sunday (May 4 and 5) at the Quesnel Home and Outdoor Adventure Show at the West Fraser Centre.

Community Futures North Cariboo sponsored the Young Entrepreneurs of SD28 this year and will be joining the students at the Home and Outdoor Adventure Show.

The students have gone through a mock business startup process, including creating a business plan and cash flow sheet, designing their products, creating product samples to present to investors, securing business loans from investors, shopping for supplies and mass producing their products, and they are now preparing to sell their products at the Home Show. The students are designing and creating their own logos and marketing material for the weekend. Just some examples of the products the students will be selling include birch tree candle holders, wooden key racks, dreamcatchers, rock candle holders and decorative wooden arrows.

The students will also be selling a meal deal with a hot dog, chips and a drink for $5, and there will be sweets for sale.

Twenty-three students in Dean Morrow’s Grade 5/6 class at Red Bluff will be selling their products at the Home Show.

Dylan Closs and Kiara Hermanson, who are both in Grade 5, have been making jewelry after creating the business, Laxxibuu Jewelry.

“It’s a First Nations word that means ‘wolf,’ and my clan is wolf,” Hermanson says of their business name. “I got it from my mom because she’s starting a business too.”

Hermanson says she chose to make jewelry because she really likes jewelry and she has known how to make it for a while.

“I thought since I know how to do a lot of different things, I thought I’d do jewelry,” she said.

Closs says one of their friends was doing cooking, but she chose jewelry because she hadn’t spent a lot of time with Hermanson.

Since beginning the project, they have learned many different words in French, and they have learned the language of business.

“An ‘enterprise’ is ‘business’ in French,” said Closs. “It’s really cool. I didn’t know how many words there were.”

“I’ve also learned how to make jewelry because I’d never done it before,” said Closs. “She [Hermanson] taught me everything I know.”

Closs and Hermanson purchased some of their jewelry-making supplies at My Own Collection on Reid Street, and they received a discount after explaining their project.

Closs and Hermanson have a profit goal of $240, and they have to make — and sell — 30 bracelets to reach that goal. They are also making rings and earrings.

Both girls are really looking forward to the chance to sell their jewelry to the public.

When asked if they were excited, Closs nodded enthusiastically and said “Oh yeah, very excited.”

“Mr. Morrow says that some people might just buy them because there are cute kids,” she added with a big smile.

Hermanson says when it comes to displaying and selling their jewelry, they are going to put the jewelry out on a table, and they will have a poster with prices on it.

Both Hermanson and Closs have really enjoyed the experience of becoming entrepreneurs.

“It’s really fun, and if there are extras, we get to keep them,” said Hermanson.

Closs says she liked the experience of getting a loan to buy their supplies.

“I thought the experience was terrifying but also fun, and I think that’s going to be one of my favourite parts of this project,” she said.

École Red Bluff Lhtako Elementary School teacher Dean Morrow says this project brings together a lot of different pieces of the curriculum. Twenty-three of his Grade 5/6 students are part of the Young Entrepreneurs of SD28 project and will be at the Home and Outdoor Adventure Show both Saturday and Sunday, along with students from his wife’s class at Parkland Elementary School.

“It’s a good hands-on project-based assignment that ties into four or five different subjects at the same time,” said Morrow.

Tying the project into social studies, Morrow says his class is researching a charity they would like to support, and they will be donating a portion of their profits to the charity they choose.

Throughout this project, students have learned a lot of math and financial literacy, they’ve had to write a business profile and a business pitch, and they’ve had to do a business pitch to investors in French, so there has also been a lot of writing and communication. With the loans they received from investors, they went shopping to purchase all their supplies, and they spent two days last week making the items they will be selling this weekend.

“For financial literacy, they have profit goals and sharing goals; they’ve done all the math,” said Morrow.

Morrow says three years ago, he did this project at Parkland Elementary, and students sold their products at the home show and were able to pay off their loans and make about $1,300 in profit. Two years ago, students sold products at the Quesnel Farmers’ Market over four weeks, and they all paid off their loans and made about $1,300 in profit.

The Home and Outdoor Adventure Show, which is hosted by the Quesnel and District Chamber of Commerce, runs Saturday, May 4 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, May 5 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the West Fraser Centre.

READ MORE: Chamber highlights young entrepreneurs at AGM



editor@quesnelobserver.com

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École Red Bluff Lhtako Elementary School student Hayden Hyshka gets some help from teacher Dean Morrow as he builds a vase holder. Lindsay Chung photo
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École Red Bluff Lhtako Elementary School Grade 5 students Kiara Hermanson (left) and Dylan Closs work on a bracelet together. They will be selling their jewelry at this weekend’s Home and Outdoor Adventure Show. Lindsay Chung photo
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From left, Maggie Beaudoin, Maya Robotham and Autumn Mulholland of École Red Bluff Lhtako Elementary School share the arrows and birch tree candle holders they’ve made for their business, which is called Wild Decor. Lindsay Chung photo