March 2015
Dear Friends,

As National Entrepreneurship Week comes to an end, we reflect back on this very busy week!  In Northern NJ alone, about 400 young people got their first taste of small business ownership.  We were able to attend three out of the four local Marketplaces and found inspiration around every corner.  Thank you to all of you who had a hand in these successes.  Please continue to spread the word so that we can get this experience to more young people to better prepare them for their futures. 
As always, contact us with your thoughts!
Pamela deWaal and Hayley Romano





Meet Camryn
Cam's Carvings

Hi my name is Camryn and I'm a sixth-grader at Walter T Bergen middle school. When I was younger I would always go to local TREP$ Marketplaces. So this year I decided to participate in it. Honestly in the beginning, I had no idea what I should do. I love to whittle and do arts and crafts and I thought it would be cool to wood burn and whittle  sticks to make them look cool, but I knew that people would not want sticks. I also new that people wanted to buy things that they could use. So it instantly thought, pens.

I would make the pens by finding a cool looking stick in the woods and whittling it. Then when it's perfectly whittled and there's a point at the end, so it looks more like the shape of a pen, I would drill a hole in it and glue the pen inside. Lastly, I would wood burn really cool designs on them.

Once I got to the TREP$ Marketplace, I got a little nervous because there was a lot of people there and the line was really long to get in. I guess I was nervous for nothing because my pens sold out in the first 45 minutes - I was really excited! I made about 20 pens this year. If I keep doing this business I think I'll make more pens next time. Some people were really sad that I sold out so quickly, so I took a couple of special orders, like if someone wanted their name on it I would bring would custom burn it.

Next year I will definitely participate in the TREP$ Marketplace. It was a great experience!

Meet Rachel
Rachel's Art
 

My name is Rachel, and I am in 6th grade at Sparta Middle School. This was the first time I had participated in the TREP$ Program and I found it surprisingly fun! It had always been interesting seeing what others had created and sold each year, so I decided to try to sell something of my own.  

 

My passion is drawing, and I always thought it would be cool to sell my own artwork. My mom along with others encouraged me to sell my art. I asked what students were into and found out what was trending in order to figure out what to draw. I ended up drawing characters from different cartoons, Sports, Mythical creatures, and a town spirit poster. I drew mostly everything on my computer, while some I hand drew. My dad helped me with all the printing and my mom helped with my business plan.  

 

I had priced my product at $6 dollars each, with a deal of 2 for $10. I was surprised at how many people purchased my art. Girls, boys, and adults all enjoyed what I had to offer. I sold out on 4 different poster designs and had to take orders. I made a profit of $121. A lot more than I had expected! The compliments I received were also very encouraging.

 

Participating in the TREP$ program taught me many skills to use in the business world that I hope to use in the future to sell my art. Hearing what others had to say has given me ideas for future pieces of artwork and poster designs. I have many ideas that I hope to use next year!

 

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Meet Paxton
Photos Near and Far
 

Hi, my name is Paxton and I'm a ten-year-old, fifth grader from Helen Morgan School in Sparta, New Jersey. I participated in my first TREP$ Marketplace on February 24, 2015. In the beginning, we had meetings that were held on Fridays after school. We were put in groups and learned about making advertisements and how that's important in getting people to buy your products. For this, we had a candy bar challenge where we made a label for our candy bar. My group's was called TCBC which stood for "The Country's Best Chocolate." Another week we were learning about how to make products to sell. We were given popsicle sticks, paper clips, clothes pins, pipe cleaners and they each had a price which we had to add up to figure our costs. We needed to know how to manage our money based on how much our product would cost to make versus how much we could charge for our product. From these objects we made a catapult called "Project. Dragonfly." The product we made launched a dragonfly made of a clothespin and two paperclips. It was very successful. Another week, we created an advertisement and jingle for canned vegetables. Our jingle went like this, "Ninety-nine cents for veggies today, ninety-nine cents per can. Ninety-nine cents for veggies today, ninety-nine cents for veggies, hurray!" We had a lot of fun with that and kept singing the jingle.

 

The name of my final product for our TREP$ Marketplace was "Photos Near and Far." For this, I made notecards and framed photos of local scenery in New Jersey, as well as landscapes of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, the Galapagos Islands (I borrowed photos with permission from my sister), and Park City, Utah. I had the idea for the frames and my grandmother gave me the idea for the notecards because people always need to send thank you notes, so this might be a product that would sell. I had fun taking the photographs. My mom and I took walks in the snow to get really good local pictures. I also enjoyed designing the cards and getting them printed. I also enjoyed creating a design for my company.  

 

The night of the Marketplace, I was prepared with a tablecloth and books to help present my photos and cards. I also had a poster for advertising. I was nervous at first, but after a few sales, and a few smiles, I was more comfortable. By the end of the night, I had $258. After costs, and subtracting the change I had brought with me, I made a profit of $98.22. I definitely want to do this again!

 

Meet Joanna
Cartooname
 

My name is Joanna and I just recently took part in a TREP$ Marketplace at Walter T.Bergen Middle School. I am in 5th grade. I did my TREP$ table on my own and found it very fun. I had gone to meetings after school to learn and prepare for the marketplace. I named my booth Cartooname which is a combination of cartoon and Anime art that I drew. I love Anime (ah-NIH-may), which is a Japanese form of animation.

 

I had always gone to TREP$ even as a little kindergartener and I couldn't wait to do it myself. Once 4th grade rolled around I was already thinking of what to sell. I had made Perler Bead art for my brother to sell when he did TREP$ but I decided that Perler Beads was not my forte. So when the time came to think of what to do, I chose to sell my artwork and make polymer clay charms called Cabatrons. I also did a raffle for a decorated phone case called a Decoden.

 

During TREP$ I had leaned what sold and what didn't so I could plan out what to do (and change) for next year. I had met and made friends with people who stopped by my booth that had the same interests in the things I like to draw. I hope to do it next year. It was so much fun.  

Drawing has always been something that I love and I was very happy to see that people understood and liked my style of art.