Procurement News Notice |
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| PNN | 4072 |
| Work Detail | Ciara Stratton’s best sales pitch may be her winning smile. The 18-year-old walks outside Camden’s City Hall, approaching city workers and jurors, lawyers and visitors, offering small bags of salty snacks and sweet candy for a buck or 50 cents. Some take her up on the offer, others decline the snacks but still contribute, while some simply say no. No matter the response from the prospective buyer, Stratton’s reaction is the same: “OK, thank you!” followed by that wide, sweet smile. Stratton makes her way around downtown on a warm, sunny weekday with other members of EXCITE (an acronym for Excellence for Cultural Infusion and Technical Education) Youth Business League (YBL), a small but determined group of teens learning entrepreneurship one snack bag at a time. Each of them carries a box of snacks and hopes for a bright future. Quinzelle Bethea, not much older than the students he mentors, had spent the morning teaching the group about sales, professionalism, profit and loss, and other business basics at a small classroom at the Volunteers of America office on Federal Street. Each day, Bethea mixes that classroom instruction with real-world sales training, taking a small group to the Walter Rand Transportation Center, City Hall, the Camden County Hall of Justice and sometimes into the suburbs to sell snacks. The money they earn is split evenly — half is theirs to keep; the other half is turned around to buy more snacks to sell another day. A typical day’s take? As much as $200, earning the youngsters a cool $100. The Courier-Post sat in on a class recently as Stratton and three other students learned about formulating a mission statement for their business. Among Excite’s missions: combating youth unemployment through entrepreneurship, teaching financial literacy and showing the youngsters legitimate ways to make money in a city where the underground economy can offer temptations hard to resist. “We’re trying to combat the seductive lure of criminal activity,” Bethea says. The 24-year-old college student and married father of a 5-year-old said he was inspired by reading a biography of billionaire Warren Buffett. He dresses the part of a serious businessman: a suit perfectly fitted to his slender frame, shoes polished to a shine, the confident bearing of a man who believes the product he’s selling. And snacks aside, the product he’s really selling is one he believes in: He’s selling these teens on their own ability to make it in the world. “We teach them who they are in their everyday lives, and then we shift that to a business-oriented mindset,” he says. In class, the small group grows quiet as a visitor takes a seat in the back. Bethea, though, won’t have it. He stands at the whiteboard asking them questions. The students look furtively around. “Come on, don’t be shy,” he says. He calls Unique Vasquez to the front. She gets flustered, shyly answering his questions and writing notes on the board. “Speak up,” Bethea tells her. “Eeee-nun-ci-ate.” Stratton, too, goes to the whiteboard. She’s less shy, but still absorbing Bethea’s lessons. “I’ve already learned so much about business and how it works,” she says. She’s not living at home, so this is a bit of stability for her. “My family’s broken up and I was put out of the house,” she says. She works part-time at a nearby Chipotle restaurant and is staying with a friend. Still, she’s about to move into transitional housing through the Center for Family Services’ GrandSlam program, which will help her with rent and provide educational assistance. “I’ve really got no support system at home, but I feel like this is always here for me.” Casanova Collins, a schoolmate of Stratton’s at Wilson, says he knew Bethea was “a very resourceful man” the first time he attended the class at VOA. Admitting to some trouble in school, Collins says Bethea and the Youth Business League have “gotten me through some of my darkest days.” He works as a chef part-time, but hopes to learn animation and video game design. Vasquez had ambitions of going into law enforcement, but, she says, learning about business may have led her in another direction. “Now I’m not so sure,” the 17-year-old smiles. “I like business, too. I might want to start a clothing line that a lot of women would like, design and sell dresses and stuff.” Tanisha “Mecca” Robinson is the director of EXCITE YBL, overseeing Bethea’s work for the last couple of years. Recalling a 2015 incident in which Bethea was wrongly arrested and detained by a Camden County police officer who is now himself facing criminal charges in the case, she believes “being tested made him more determined to help people.” “He could have gotten angry and bitter,” she says. “Instead, he understands what they’re going through. He has compassion for the trials faced by young black men and women. “He’ll tell me, 'Miss Mecca, it’s bigger than you or me,’ and he understands how the system is designed to make young people think a certain way. He uses the experience to empower people, to show them they have a voice, too — a voice that’s bigger than politics or the police.” EXCITE is meant not only to teach, but also to be an oasis for the teens in a sometimes chaotic city, she adds. “We’re teaching them to love themselves, love their families, love their environment. We want them to see people doing positive things with their lives. We as adults set the tone, but the expectations are there for them: no gangs, no bullying, no fights.” Back downtown, Dashimer Griesham is getting last-minute instructions from Bethea, carrying a box of snacks bought in bulk earlier from a nearby wholesale club. “Relax,” Bethea tells the fresh-faced 15-year-old. “Start a conversation with people.” Griesham walks up to a group sitting at a bus stop across from the transportation center and offers his products. “OK, sweetness, what do you have?” asks Tracey Smith, pulling a wallet from her handbag. He’s got a customer. Money and snacks change hands. Griesham and Smith also exchange smiles. A few blocks away, Vasquez and Stratton are selling, too, under the watchful eye of teacher Evan Wheeler, who offers a steady stream of advice and encouragement. Soon, they’ll meet up again with Bethea and their classmates, tally up the day’s take and get ready to do it all again tomorrow, smiles at the ready. |
| Country | United Kingdom , Northern Europe |
| Industry | Education & Training |
| Entry Date | 03 Sep 2016 |
| Source | http://www.courierpostonline.com/story/news/2016/08/29/camden-teens-get-lessons-entrepreneurship/89521704/ |
