We are raising money for the kids in our program & community to have an opportunity to sell their creations & services as well as provide health & nutrition education. Please read our Story & Share with your friends!
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What You Receive When You Donate To This Cause
** $5 Donations- for every $5 you donate, you receive an entry into our drawing at the end of August.
** $1,000+ Donations- You will Receive a special hand made Thank You Card signed by our junior entrepreneurs and volunteers as an extra thank you for helping us provide this for them.
** $5,000+ Donations - You will Receive a custom “Thank You For Your Support” T-Shirt or Hat signed by all of our junior entrepreneurs and volunteers for helping us get this started so that we can help shape the next generation of kids to be creatively inspired entrepreneurs who make positive change in the future!
***Tax Write Offs- part of the money we are raising is to get our non-profit program started so that we can sponsor kids who can’t afford the enrollment cost as well as start up costs such as supplies to make their products. These benefits extend not only to our community yet even more communities as we grow nation wide. At this time we are offering a wall of recognition where we advertise your business on our wall if you need the tax write off for your business. This is the only tax write off we can offer until our non-profit paperwork is filed.
What Your Donation Pays For
Dear Interested Party/Supporter/Potential Sponsor –
Are you like many of us who feel the time has come to get excited about something, something that can make a big difference for people in our community, and something that the community can rally around? Please take two minutes to hear our story --
Our first “marketplace” at the Fruitdale Grange on June 2nd and 3rd appeared to be pretty ordinary at first glance – a room full of vendors selling their homemade jewelry, dog biscuits, street tacos, plants, stuffed animals and molded resin items. What makes this extraordinary, though, is that the oldest of these vendors was only 15 years old … and the youngest was 8.
These young people are members of the Junior Entrepreneur Program inspired by local consultant, Sarah Macias. It was created to give our youth an early start at developing a product or service, merchandising it and then selling it to the public while learning valuable life and business lessons along the way. This Market Place was the first for them, and the adults in the room figured that hosting a Market Place now and then again in the Fall would be sufficient to give them a taste of something exciting. However, we quickly learned how difficult it is to keep even one step ahead of a group of enthusiastic and newly inspired young people! They got a taste of something they like and now we are eager to provide opportunities for growth in the process. It’s a humbling situation to find ourselves in!
Which brings us to where we are now. We’ve created a series of Youth Marketplaces throughout the summer thanks in large part to the generous donation of the use of a lot in Grants Pass. This enables us to move forward in creating a location for families in the community to gather for family fun like corn hole games, horseshoes, entertainment, and a good dose of healthy youth capitalism!
Having a semi-permanent location gives us the freedom to offer weekly booth space to any of our 21 current youth members as well as other aspiring young entrepreneurs from the community. We are attempting to maintain a low financial cost of entry to anyone who is interested in participating.
Our current plan is to have a weekly event on Friday evenings from 4 – 8 PM to enable families to take advantage of this activity. Our scheduled starting date is July 22nd .
We do not yet have our 501(c)(3), non-profit status, and have still had phenomenal support from individuals, businesses, parents, and the media, for this effort. Additionally, community members who witnessed the enthusiasm of the kids at our market event are anxious to help make this a greater success in a short time frame by volunteering to participate as a sponsor in some capacity. We would appreciate any help, financial or otherwise, that you are inspired to offer for this unique opportunity. Our pledge to anyone who offers financial support is that any monetary contributions will be spent on providing materials and services directly related to the execution of our plan for the Youth Marketplace and reimbursing what has already gone into providing this program. Our plan is to provide tables and pop-up canopies at a nominal rental charge to help lessen start-up costs for the participants.
A partial list of those items follows:
- 6 - Caravan Canopy Pop Up Canopies at $143 each from Amazon. Offered for nominal rent – Total Cost - $858
- 6 -6 ft. Cosco folding tables at $66.00 each from Amazon for kids to display their wares. Offered for nominal rent – Total Cost - $396
- Liability insurance policy for the site and events - $250
- Amplifier and microphone for young people who wish to entertain the attendance – Price still to be determined from knowledgeable sources.
- Karaoke machine to use during Family Karaoke Night- Price still to be determined from knowledgeable sources.
- Large signs to display during Youth Marketplace from Staples- $75
- Renting a permanent location for 1-2 years - price to be determined when the location is found estimated $1500 per month
- Office equipment and supplies Printer, computer, paper, etc - estimated $3,000
We prefer buying local for any of these needs and have not yet had the chance to check with local businesses to get tables, canopies, amplifiers, etc. Any help you can offer for resources that we can check with would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance for any willingness you have to engage with our efforts to make this a reality for the kids. Please contact Sarah Macias at [email protected].
Kind Regards,
Sarah Macias
Founder/Creator of the Junior Entrepreneur Program: Sarah Macias
Sarah's Story: I feel it important to give you a background story about my creative daughter before I dive in to my idea. A little over a year ago my older daughter Olivia, 8 years old at the time, wanted a Barbie Dream House. She had been asking my husband and I the whole year prior to buy it for her. At the time it wasn’t something that my husband and I were in a position to purchase for her. One day I suggested to her that we spend time brainstorming ideas of how she could earn the $180.
In the end Olivia decided that she would do a bake sale to earn the money. She came up with all of the pricing, did the baking with her friend, made a poster to display what she was raising the money for and set out to sell her goodies. Within a couple outings she quickly earned nearly $250 and purchased her Barbie Dream House.
On another occasion she did the same thing to raise spending money for our 2021 Disneyland trip. Olivia isn’t the only one, we also have a dear friend whose 11-year-old daughter has done something similar with raising money for her entire Disney World trip. I even remember earning money in creative ways when I was a child to purchase a mountain bike.
I imagine there are other kids who have dreams for themselves yet do not have the finances to acquire such possessions or experiences. It could be as small as a fun Lego set, their own Barbie mansion, power tools or maybe even a vehicle.
As a parent when my girls express how they’d like to own a particular something, if it’s not a necessity, I ask them how we can make that happen? How can I support them in acquiring the money to purchase ‘xyz’?
My vision is to provide a place for a ‘Youth Market’ (this name may be adjusted) where children ages 8 to 18 in our community can raise money for a personal goal. They use their own gifts and talents to come up with an item to market. Maybe they are good at drawing, or making bookmarks, or knitting scarves, etc. I will set up a place where they pay a small fee to rent a space in the ‘Youth Market’. They set the goal amount, they make the item they will sell and then set the price. One requirement would be that they have a parent/guardian in the building on workshop and market days (I understand adjustments will be made for the teenagers).
During the year I will set up a variety of workshops that are about an hour each to help with certain skills. Topics that are important to the success of a business. Product creation, expenses, keeping a budget, ext.
The beauty in this idea is that youth can begin to use their own creativity to earn money. This will spark inspiration in their life and begin causing them to become a participant in their life in a new way. They will learn practical skills such as opening a checking account, budgeting, networking with peers and interacting with potential clients. They will be surrounded by others who are doing the same and I will be there to create positivity, affirm who they are and provide support in the process.
Thank you for believing it is possible for these kids to do what seems impossible no matter the age.
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