WARREN — Area youth have spent the past six weeks learning how to create and promote a product as part of the Inspiring Minds summer enrichment program. The program, which is marking its 11th year, concludes this week as the participants will showcase their products to parents and friends during a summer market at Warren G. Harding High School.
Carl Diggs, program director, said the six-week summer program that began in June focused on entrepreneurship.
“The students have learned how to start their own business. They have also learned about financial literacy from Chase Bank, who has people come here once a week. We partnered with Chase Bank who put together a curriculum on what it takes to start a business,” Diggs said.
Diggs said the market showcases entrepreneurship and 30 “businesses” the students created throughout the six weeks. The summer program, which first took place in 2012, had 300 participants in Trumbull County in Warren and 50 in Mahoning County in Youngstown. Jessica Winters, program administrator, said the speakers meet with each age group of students once per week. The program is for third to 12th grade, but students are divided into separate age groups.
“We want the students to learn about becoming more financially sound and how to save money,” Diggs said,
He said he was impressed how creative the students were in coming up with a business name, logo and product.
Micah Morgan, a junior at John F. Kennedy Upper Campus, said he wasn’t sure what to expect when he signed up for the program, but feels he gained leadership and discipline skills. He said he learned a lot from college visits.
“What I have learned here will help me in the future. We each had our own business for food or clothing. It was interesting to come up with names and whether we wanted to sell shirts or hats. We learned about pricing our products and marketing it to get the name out there,” Morgan said.
Also this summer, students traveled to Washington, D.C., as part of a summer exposure trip for high school students.
Winters said the trip was to Howard University, and also seeing landmarks and monuments in the nation’s capitol and the National African American History Museum. They also visited a large market, which was inspiration for the local market at Harding High School.
Jordan McEachern, a seventh-grader at Warren City Schools, said it was his first time in Washington, D.C., and visiting the university allowed him to see numerous career opportunities. He said he would like to run his own business. For the project, his group was marketing french fries.
“It was fun to be able to design a logo,” he said.
Laniya Ladson, an eighth-grader in Warren, said she plans to continue with the business ideas she gained from the program.
“I learned the importance of reaching the right audience with your product and coming up with a concept,” she said.
She went to visit Toyota of Warren as part of an industry tour.
Trinity Taylor, a freshmen in Warren, said she went to Slippery Rock University to see career choices.
Winters said numerous businesses were visited so students could see the behind the scenes. She said students also will sell produce they grew in the garden.
Students also participated in continuing education to prevent summer learning loss, art, sports, swimming, community service, college visits, industry tours, cooking lessons and field trips.
Diggs said the summer program is an application process. Students also take part in maintaining gardens and growing vegetables, learning cooking skills, as well as reading and writing activities and reviewing of subjects.
“With the garden, the kids learn about planting, weeding, watering. They see what is involved,” he said.
He said students planted tomatoes, watermelon, corn, cabbage, squash, cucumbers and peppers.
There also are recreational opportunities such as swimming and basketball
