Caolan Prieur's bell peppers and sunflowers were in high demand at the Georgia Ave. Elementary entrepreneur fair on Tuesday, May 9. (Ian Holmes/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Ian Holmes

reality cheque

Budding entrepreneurs show off business skills at south Nanaimo school

May 9, 2023 | 1:34 PM

NANAIMO — A large collection of fifth and sixth graders are getting an early start on learning what it’s like to run their own business.

About 50 Georgia Avenue Elementary students completed a 12-week entrepreneur journey where they created their own business plan in advance of selling their homemade products to the school community on Tuesday, May 9.

Everything from tie-dye socks, dog treats, bird feeders, bookmarks, lip balm and various art projects were on sale at booths staffed by excited entrepreneurs. It was a productive morning for fifth grader Caolan Prieuer, who was selling bell peppers and black sunflowers he grew himself.

“I had to buy two bags of dirt which were $14.43. Then I bought the pots for about a dollar. It didn’t take very much for me to do it.”

Caolan’s Semi Big Plants turned out to be a hit.

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He had $34 in sales just 30 minutes into the event.

“So pretty much, I’m making a lot of cash.” an excited Prieuer said, who pointed to an incentive for a free sunflower as a proven sales feature.

Eryn Dimayacyac created felt-based key chains at $5 a piece.

She put in roughly 60 hours into her venture, which she said was aided by referencing online resources, including YouTube videos.

“I’m nervous because what if I don’t sell anything? And I’m excited because I’m going to get money, my life savings are going to go up a bunch.”

Dimyacyac is donating a portion of her profits to cancer-fighting initiatives in honour of her grandmother who passed away from the disease.

Eryn Dimayacyac saw plenty of interest in her homemade key chains. (Ian Holmes/NanaimoNewsNOW)

Emily Abramczyk has experience making her own bar soap, which she switched up this time around.

“I had this idea of putting fidgets inside soap…I thought it would be really fun for other kids to see what they could find inside.”’

While creating the product wasn’t much of a struggle for Abramczyk, she found marketing was difficult to make her soap stand out.

“It was really hard, I wanted to make my poster fun-looking. Then I put the prices up and put it around the school,” Abramczyk said.

Student Teacher Karli Maude is a fifth year VIU Bachelor of Education Student, who led the project’s implementation with a fellow student teacher.

She said the entrepreneurial program was well received by the students, who worked as a group and independently to maximize their skills to create something they could be proud of.

Maude said small loans from the student’s caregivers allowed them to pay for the necessary supplies to create their products.

“Some of these students have made connections that is carrying them into other areas, that’s shown them interest that they didn’t know they had and skills they didn’t know they possessed.”

The program covered marketing, finance and establishing a business plan, Maude said.

“Telling children things is one way to learn, but they learn a very small amount from that. Whereas the process of doing, they learn leaps and bounds more than if they were given work sheets.”

All participating students picked a non-profit charity to donate a portion of their profits to.

Maude teamed up with fellow student teacher Liam Upton to coordinate the entrepreneur endeavor for a split grade five/six class at Georgia Avenue Elementary School.

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ian@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @reporterholmes