Highlights of the HOPE Business In A Box Atlanta Pilot
Highlights of the HOPE Business In A Box Atlanta Pilot By Natasha L. Foreman, HBIAB Consultant HOPE Business In A Box (HBIAB) is gaining headway and getting a great response from youth, teachers, program directors, and community leaders around Atlanta, Georgia, as the HBIAB team launched its pilot study this summer. We have had the honor and privilege of meeting and working with young aspiring entrepreneurs who are entering grades 4 through 12 this upcoming school year. Since the end of June our team has tested and tried different methods, lessons, and activities with students at three different summer programs—Project Grad (this summer their program was held at Oglethorpe University), the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center, and the Andrew & Walter Young YMCA. Each program underwent three to four day sessions with our HBIAB team and volunteers. After participating in our award-winning Banking on Our Future (BOOF) program where youth learned about financial dignity and the basics of banking, checking, savings, credit, and investments—students were introduced for the first time to our HBIAB Youth Entrepreneurship Training sessions. The entrepreneurship training helps students to look at the role, responsibilities, and risks of theentrepreneur—who has an idea and builds it into a monetized reality—-and the intrapreneur, who works for the company and is passionate about helping the organization fulfill their mission and vision. It does not take long when sitting in one of our sessions to see the light bulbs turn on for those natural entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs who want to succeed, and share the various ways that they can turn ideas into profit-making enterprises. HBIAB gives youth the opportunity to learn about business, entrepreneurship, developing and running with an idea, researching how best to make their idea work, and then pitching their idea first in front of their peers and classroom judges—and then, for those finalists who go on to the next round—they compete against other teams from their school or program for an opportunity to earn a HBIAB Youth Entrepreneurship Grant, Business Startup Kit, and a Business Role Model. This second round is a “Big Pitch” competition in front of judges and an audience of peers, family members, community members and leaders, and business professionals. Here is where the magic happens as we witnessed aspiring entrepreneurs work individually and in teams with a HBIAB Volunteer to make their business ideas uniquely theirs, and then attempt to prove why their idea is viable, well thought out, has potential to make money, and can be started for $500 or less. We have had students design replicas of their products and provide outlines of their service features; students who were first sole proprietorships and then later saw an opportunity to leverage their skills by forming partnerships; and we have seen the smiles and tears of students and family members who are so thrilled at the idea of potentially seeing their business ideas become a reality. But the magic is not just with those aspiring business owners. Since June we have also connected with youth who learned the role of being an intrapreneur and not just a “regular employee” within an organization. They learned about the hard work, dedication, and willingness to see and buy-in to the organization’s mission and vision, and make it their own. HBIAB exposed youth to the reality of one day earning a position as an...
read moreHOPE Center Atlanta @ Ebenezer Conducts First Technology Workshop at Cyber Cafe
The HOPE Center Atlanta@ Ebenezer conducted its inaugural Technology workshop today at its new Cyber Cafe. The Technology workshop curriculum is part of a new HOPE Center initiative across the country to provide technology workshops to assist HOPE clients in understanding how computers work, software programs and utilizing the Internet to meet their personal goals. Congratulations HOPE Center Atlanta on your first technology workshop. If you are interested in learning more about HOPE Center Atlanta@ Ebenezer programs please click here to view the local calendar of events or email...
read moreHOPE Atlanta Welcomes New BOOF Fellow
This summer, Banking on Our Future College Edition welcomed its first summer fellow- Agustin Garcia. Besides being an amazingly intelligent and humble young man, Agustin has a passion to impact his native nation of Mexico with financial literacy to begin shifting the minds of those who have been limited because of a lack of knowledge in finance. Agustin is a student at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana, majoring in Finance and Economics. His summer fellowship was split between Atlanta, where he helped prepare for theHOPE Forum featuring FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, and Washington, DC, where he aided in the continued expansion of Banking On Our Future College Edition. Operation HOPE is an empowering organization, and I feel fortunate to have been able to empower a future world changer who I’m certain will do great...
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