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Just a few days before the start of National Small Business Week (April 30 – May 6), students at Elizabeth Seton High School showcased their budding entrepreneurial skills in the Young Women’s Entrepreneurship Program (YWEP) Small Business Expo on April 27.
Held at the Bladensburg, Maryland, school, the expo served as a fun, challenging and engaging culmination project for the first year of the YWEP.
“This is our inaugural year. It is a two-year program. ‘Innovation to Entrepreneurship’ is the first year, and we learn all about business basics. So you’ll learn about organization, communication, how to set up a business, which type of business, and at the end of the year, the expo happens,” said Joy Lawson, YWEP program director and a 2011 alumna of the all-girls Catholic high school.
Students had the opportunity to interact and network with community members, share their business ideas and even sell wares.
Junior Sydney Arnold welcomed onlookers to check out some of the eye-catching hairdos featured with her business Sydney Renee Styles.
“I’m a hairstylist. I focus on heat styles such as ponies, quick weaves, half ups and half downs and also soft locs,” Arnold, whose target audience is ages 15 to 25, told The Informer.
“I can do people older or younger,” the 17-year-old hairstylist emphasized, before explaining the thinking behind her niche clientele. “I focus on my prices being $60 to $100 to focus on my target audience and their income.”
Arnold said she planned to launch her business the week of April 30, and hopes to offer “a very welcoming environment…so people can come back and feel safe.”
The young entrepreneur explained starting her business as part of the YWEP has sparked her creative juices.
“I think me going into this business, it leads me to being very creative. Being in hair, you have a lot of trendy things — hairstyles that go trendy — and I feel that I can contribute to that also,” she said.
Other cohort members include Jada Armstrong (JT Realty); Jenipher Gracia (Cosmetic Haven); Netsanet Grimes (Lovely Styles by Netsanet); Valeria Guerrero (ARIS); Kori Guile (KH Real Estate); Christina Kelly and Jade McNeal (Deciré); Katherynn Moreno (DIVINA Jewelry); Abigail Prikockis (Polished); Lourdes Robinson (Melanated Soul); Audrey Stern (4 You) and Whitney Williams (Whit’s Boutique). Seton entrepreneurs outside of the YWEP also showcased their work, including: senior Julia Coley, an artist, and freshman Madolin Crim of Crim Creations.
Many of the young women started as simply students and have grown into business owners.
“I’m so proud of all the girls, knowing that only one of them had a business entering into this year, and 12 of them are brand new into this entrepreneurial journey,” said Lawson. “Watching them stand confident in what they created has been the biggest blessing for me, and they continue to pour into me.”
Why Entrepreneurship?
As a “fashionpreneur,” Lawson emphasized the importance of young women becoming business owners.
“Entrepreneurship is important because it is such a low rate for girls starting businesses under 18. The average age to start a business is 28, so when you have a program like this, it gives them such a large start into this industry,” Lawson told The Informer. “The skills that you learn as an entrepreneur go hand in hand with life skills.”
For the students going into their second year of the YWEP, there’s still so much more ahead.
“Over the summer, they will get matched with business mentors and have 100 hours for internships. Then into their senior year, it’s ‘Sustainability in Entrepreneurship,’ and at the end of the year, their capstone is for the pitching competition, where they’ll be able to pitch to get money,” Lawson explained.
Visual artist Melanie Royster, a 2011 alumna of the school and YWEP mentor, came to the expo in support of her Seton sisters and was impressed by the training the current students are receiving.
“They’re starting young and exploring creativity,” Royster said. “They’re exercising different parts of their minds that they usually wouldn’t exercise in high school.”
Royster told The Informer entrepreneurship allows for people to “build their own molds.”
“If you don’t feel like you fit somewhere, you build that for yourself,” the visual artist explained.
In addition to students in cohorts to come, Seton also hopes to ignite entrepreneurial fires in others.
“I hope [students and attendees] gain that innovation is key. You can start at any time and create what you’re passionate about, as long as you have your core values and you feel confident and empowered in what you’re creating and doing,” Lawson said.
The school will offer summer entrepreneurship programming beginning June 12.
“Entrepreneurship is not just during the school year, we want to make sure we’re opening up to the community,” Lawson said.