Youth Social Entrepreneurship through the Marketplace

“The purpose of life is to discover your gift. The work of life is to develop it. The meaning of life is to give your gift away.” – Dr. David Viscott

The market is a challenging place to sell your products as any business knows. Combining this challenge with service learning creates an environment of possibilities where individuals can hone skills, innovate and learn. There are different levels of networking can build during this process and new ideas emerge when working with diverse groups.

Over the years of while mentoring youth on different service learning projects new possibilities opened up regularly raising over $290,000 for local and global charities since 2000.

Over the years it was observed that ideas incubated inadvertently while working together but on further examination a deeper characteristic of service learning appears to stimulate natural creativity, improvisation and innovation into the thinking process. The driver of these traits is the fierce motivation to achieve success because of the difference one can make. The rewards for helping others is more gratifying and fulfilling as 12 year old Ethan Gagliano said once, " I feel like doing more when I do this for others". (Ethan was cleaning up after a fundraiser and he said this after him mom remarked that she wished he did this at home) !

Another example of the interaction of social entrepreneurship and innovation was how 2 young teenagers who raised funds for a roof for an orphanage in Southern India. Prashant and Pranav Ramachandran were visiting their grandparents home in Southern India when they visited an orphanage next door to distribute chess sets. As they were teaching chess the roof of the orphanage was leaking because there were no funds to fix this problem. Determined to help they returned home to the States and raised $700 to repair the roof. Just as important was the educational value of this enterprise because these teenagers learned that the orphanage was hosting child victims of the Sri Lankan civil war and they shared this knowledge with the team. Similarly, 10 year old social entrepreneur Jack Weed raised funds for a Christmas lunch families of ex prisoner's in Chicago. While distributing gifts and 2nd hand winter clothes he saw how little these children had and how a meal meant so much to them. The following year Jack collected more items to distribute as his presence among the families developed his understanding.

This simple act of intellectual curiosity, leadership, determination and care was propelled by their education in service learning. There are many other examples of students developing their talents or skills in unexpected ways.

Currently 11 year old Jack Weed and 12 year old Krish Nara work in a team as Project Managers for food charities. They sell items that artists create such as "Humanitarian Hummus and Zeins magical spices to benefit families who need help with groceries. They have enlisted artist Sree Nara a Barrington High School senior to sell her art work donating 30% to charities around food.

Previously sales of Zein's Magical spices helped a team of 15 individuals travel to South Korea on a mission trip. Many of these individuals were children of fathers who served in the Korean war and their return to where their fathers served was deeply meaningful made possible by a team of social entrepreneurs. During the fund raising several children interacted with some of the travelers like Sara Edwards learning about the sacrifices made by people like her dad in the Korean war. "I had no idea about this war, said 12 year old Sofia Genega who was on the team to raise funds.

For more information visit: www.peterwulfcenter.org or email at peterwulffcenter@gmail.com