4 Organizations Helping to Cultivate Young Entrepreneurs
TREP$
TREPS ED, LLC was founded by Hayley Romano and Pamela deWaal as a way to take their entrepreneurial experience to educate and empower kids through entrepreneurship. TREPS, a trendy term for young entrepreneurs, is an award-winning, entrepreneurship education program that provides the right situation for the kids in your school to become extraordinary. TREP$ gets kids excited to come to school and helps children to think big.
TREP$ is a program that can be brought into individual schools in order to introduce students to business early on and in a way that is meaningful. It allows the children to be actively involved in creating, developing and bringing an actual product to the TREP$ marketplace. I had the opportunity to serve as a mentor at one of the local TREP$ programs here in New Jersey and the level of creativity, enthusiasm and involvement that the kids had was truly inspiring. Through the program they had learned all the business basics; how to develop a product, how to determine pricing based on cost of goods and sales price, how to market their product to their ideal client. It was a fascinating process to be involved in and to watch.
One of TREP$ success stories is Joshua, a fifth grader at the White Rock School in Oak Ridge, NJ. Here’s his story:
Hi, I am Joshua. I go to the White Rock School, in Oak Ridge, N.J. I am in the fifth grade. It was my first time attending TREPS. We learned how to be a business person, and how to operate a small business. It was a hard challenge and fun at the same time. I enjoyed the workshops at school. We learned about making plans, how to advertise, and to not be afraid to speak to people. I made snowmen out of new men’s socks. A great gift for the Holidays.
The snowmen where a challenge to make. I had to stuff them with pebbles, stuffing, then tie off the head, make eyes, nose and buttons, two arms and mittens. My mom and grandmother helped me make 40, and I sold all of them for $5.00 each. My Aunt is a teacher at another school, I also sold 15 more there. I was very proud that I made something that people liked, and it made them happy to buy. I brought in $275.00, with a $232.66 profit.