Support kids with entrepreneurial spirit

Do you remember the first time you thought, “I don’t want to work for someone else; I know I want to run my own business one day?”

For many entrepreneurs, this dream starts at an early age.

At Everett Community College, over the past several years, we’ve seen younger and younger students who want to blaze their own trail by starting their own business, some even before they finish their education. They have a new idea and possess the passion and drive to make it happen.

This trend is a benefit to the long-term economic health of our community. One conclusion that has been drawn from our current economic crisis is that our nation, our community needs to develop and support even more entrepreneurs than we do today — because their companies will create a majority of the new jobs in the near-term and in the future.

To achieve this goal, we believe we need to plant the entrepreneurial seed early in kids so they have an opportunity to explore this world and to see if it’s right for them. It is hard to predict where the next set of great business ideas will come from, but creating a supportive environment in school around kids interested in entrepreneurship will increase the chances that these individuals and their ideas will eventually be successful.

We’re fortunate to have a local program that does this — Junior Achievement.

Junior Achievement of Washington has been around since 1953, with business, economics and life-skills programs for kindergarten to 12th grade. In addition to getting kids ready for work and teaching financial literacy, Junior Achievement exposes kids to the world of entrepreneurship.

Junior Achievement introduces entrepreneurship in its third-grade program. Third-graders develop their own restaurant concept, determine their menu, pricing and decide who to hire.

In the fourth-grade program, the restaurant project is continued by looking at available resources for the business and the concept of profit and loss.

By the end of the fifth-grade program, students learn the differences among a sole proprietorship, partnership and a corporation. They look at marketing, advertising and what a target market is. For students, the best part of the program is the opportunity to explore their own idea for a future business.

“I’m always amazed at the number of fifth-graders who want to be their own boss. They start out in groups planning a business, but before long, many of them want to be on their own with the project so they can create their own idea. I’m also impressed with the number of creative and innovative ideas for businesses that are generated by the kids,” said Ryan Moore, regional director of Junior Achievement for Snohomish County.

Junior Achievement currently serves around 17,000 students each year in Snohomish County, but that is only about 15 percent of the total number of K-12 students that Junior Achievement could serve with its programs.

“Our challenge is finding enough volunteers to deliver our programs. Business people from the community are a critical part of our volunteer group. They make the curriculum come alive by relating their own business and/or entrepreneurial experience to the students. If we had more volunteers, we could serve more students,” Moore said.

A big part of Junior Achievement is allowing young people to discover that entrepreneurial spirit.

“We give kids the great opportunity to be exposed to the possibility of finding a profession where you love your job, whether that is starting your own business or working for someone else. We tell them the old saying that if you love your job you’ll never work a day in your life,” Moore said.

So the next time you see a 7- or 8-year-old selling lemonade on a hot summer day, please stop and purchase a drink; you may be encouraging the next Bill Gates.

If you’re interested in learning more about volunteering opportunities with Junior Achievement, contact Ryan Moore at 206-296-2608 or at Ryanm@jawashington.org.

Pat Sisneros is the vice president of College Services at Everett Community College. Lynne Munoz is director for the School of Business Design. Please send your comments to entrepreneurship@everettcc.edu.