Young entrepreneurs get start at summer camp
Karen Mok, 16, says she might take her passion for writing poetry, combine it with empathy and open a personalized greeting card business.
Mok, who lives in North Charleston and attends Fort Dorchester High School, is one of 14 high school entrepreneur students spending the week at a business camp at the College of Charleston. The camp is sponsored by YESCarolina, a nonprofit organization that trains teachers to instruct students in entrepreneurial skills and offers business camps to students.
YESCarolina Chief Executive Officer Jimmy Bailey said the camp was paid for by a $15,000 donation from Motley Rice. The law firm is donating to local charities and organizations all legal fees it received from a settlement after a 2003 drug raid at Stratford High School.
Bailey said the group also is running beginning and advanced training sessions for teachers this week.
Mok said the camp so far is "one of the highlights of my education."
Like the other students, she took an entrepreneur class at her high school where she created a proposal for a business she might be interested in launching.
Teachers statewide submitted proposals to YESCarolina. The group selected 14 students' proposals and invited them to the camp.
Mok said she would like to display a variety of cards that include her poetry on a Web site. She also would like to offer her customers the option of purchasing a one-of-a-kind card. For example, a person who had a fight with his mother could submit a request over the Internet for a card that might help resolve things. Mok said she could write a poem specifically focused on that situation.
At the camp, which runs through Wednesday, she hopes to figure out just how much money it will cost to launch her business and how much time it will take to run it effectively. If the project is feasible, she plans to move forward with it.
Adam Lawrence, 17, and Meeshon Thompson, 16, both from Walhalla, are going to move forward making "game-time rosters."
Other students have proposed businesses that make crystal earrings, hand-painted toy boxes and DVDs of old, treasured photographs.
In addition to developing business plans and learning more about how to run a business, students took some field trips, including one to Callie's Charleston Biscuits. Owner Carrie Bailey-Morey told the students how she tapped into the demand for gourmet food and Southern cuisine and launched her own biscuit business. She shared with students how she markets her product, how she treats customers and what it cost to get the business off the ground.
She said she wants to help the young entrepreneurs in any way she can.
"When I was getting started," Bailey-Morey said, "I had a ton of questions and nobody to ask."
Reach Diane Knich at 937-5491 or dknich@postand courier.com.
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