Students Participate in Junior Achievement’s JA Be Entrepreneurial Challenge at The Hartford

A total of 86 students from three area high schools learned the fundamentals of starting a business by participating in JA Be Entrepreneurial Challenge held at The Hartford, Windsor campus on December 8.

These students, from Windsor High School, Enfield High School and High School Inc., used Junior Achievement’s “JA Be Entrepreneurial” high school curriculum during the two- day program which is designed to help ignite the students’ entrepreneurial spirit.

Twenty-four volunteers from The Hartford participated in the program, each helping teach the different sessions to the students.  The students worked in groups of five to come up with 21 new businesses and create business plans around them. At the end of the first day, the students presented their work to a panel of judges including two Hartford volunteers and two Junior Achievement employees. The judges selected 6 teams which made final presentations to the judges Dec. 20.

The winning team, from Enfield High School created a company called “Valuably Vegan & Organics”. It caters to vegans, anyone who has any food allergies or simply likes to eat organic. You may think to find a store like this would mean high costs for all its products, but that was the catch- it was affordable to the general public.

“Seeing the students work together to create a product, is great experience, not only for the students but for the volunteers, educators and Junior Achievement. They have such bright, open minds and they see what is missing in the world, and want to create it!  The ideas that were talked about and created over these two days are unbelievable and truly inspiring!” said Junior Achievement’s Senior Specialty & Digital Education Manager, Nicole Diorio. “The JA Be Entrepreneurial Challenge is such a great program; it really engages the students. To top it off, to have the lessons be taught by such wonderful volunteers like The Hartford, definitely has a great impact on them, which they will remember for the rest of their lives”.

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