THUNDER BAY – There’s no better preparation for the post-secondary and working world than real life experience.
That’s what business students at Hammarskjold High School have been experiencing for the last two months.
Their work in putting together their own business and learning about everything that goes into it paid off on Tuesday as the school held its second annual market day.
“A lot of the things that we’ve done have definitely given us a clearer idea for what you want to do after you are done high school,” said Grade 11 student Jack Baxter, who teamed up with classmate Hannah Horslen to form Viking Designs, which sells Hammarskjold Vikings school gear and earnings with various designs.
“It definitely helps you get better at your social skills and marketing, being able to talk to people, selling your product and explaining your idea to people.
“We’ve had a lot of questions that have been asked to both of us about how we do it, how we make it and what our plans are for after market day.”
Gino Russo, who is the department chair for business studies at Hammarskjold, said that the 50 students from Grades 9-12 who were involved in this year’s projects were excited to be involved.
“Half of them are already operating some sort of business so they came in and already had an idea in mind, because that’s what they are doing after school,” Russo said.
“The most important point from these lessons is to promote entrepreneurship and business. They’re able to be functioning members of our economy as they become successful and they have the skills and confidence to be a part of the world of business if they decided to go down that road.”
There were 22 booths set up for market day, which sold food, crafts and games to students, staff and members of the public.
Many of the students also received entrepreneurial grants totalling over $1,800 from the Ministry of Education to help with their businesses.
Those recipients were determined through a pair of presentations to a council where each group presented their idea and their plans for the future.
“The presentations were probably the most stressful part about the whole thing,” Baxter said.
“For one, there was a lot of money that was out there for us and made us learn everything that we had to share about our products.
“It was a challenge for us as it was still pretty close to the beginning of our project and we still weren’t quite set on what our plans were, but it worked out.”
A portion of the funds that were raised on Tuesday went to the Thunder Bay Food Bank and the Salvation Army.
