Bringing Business Smarts to TWLS

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Most kids have probably run a lemonade stand in their neighborhood once or twice at some point, but that’s as far as that business will go. The Whole Learning School has taken that basic lemonade stand idea and expanded it into a week-long camp for children with special needs; helping them become real business owners.
TWLS’s annual entrepreneur camp teaches young students with special needs how to become business savvy while having fun. Drawing on TWLS’s philosophy of teaching the whole child, the entrepreneur camp reaches another learning aspect for each student – business development and ownership. At camp, students learn business concepts such as sales, marketing and product development. Basic academics such as reading, math and thinking skills are also reinforced.

In past years, the camp’s focus has been on the Flower of Life Card Company, where the students make and decorate cards to sell at the annual August Garage Sale. This year, the kids have taken it a step further. In addition to the card sales, they focused on selling products to those attending the basketball classes next door. Calling themselves “The Hydration Team,” they set up shop both before and after each basketball sessions, encouraging those walking by to purchase their products.

Each morning before they begin their sales, the students have a business meeting to discuss the previous day’s profits and their predictions for the morning. They also compare the differences between their operating expenses (how much the drinks initially cost the Hydration Team) versus their profits (what the team made after their sales).

“The camp gives the students an opportunity for business learning. They understand the idea of inventory and their products to be sold,” explains camp teacher, Sue McCrary. “To allow the students a visual on the amount of money they are earning, they fill out a bar graph each day with the amount of money they have made from each product.”

The students can then compare their daily earnings and learn about business highs and lows. For example, only one drink was sold on Thursday, compared to much higher sales earlier in the week. Still, the kids don’t get discouraged as they try to push their product to passersby, yelling, “Water and Gatorade here! Come buy some water and Gatorade!”

After a week of beverage sales, the students have raised close to $40. For their final day of entrepreneur camp, the students are spending their earned money in the community. They already have their day planned out, including breakfast at Perkins, playtime at Chutes and Ladders Park, and a short trip to Target’s dollar section. They’ve learned that hard work leads to great rewards in all businesses, and are excited to spend their hard-earned cash.

For children with special needs, actually being able to punch numbers into a cash machine, add up sales, and compare profits makes a world of difference in their understanding of business development. In addition, knowing that the cards they create are eventually going to be sold provides a sense of accomplishment.

Details on the Annual August Garage Sale are to come, so make sure to stop by and look at the students’ cards!

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