My name is Maddie and I am a seventh grader at Our Lady of the Lake School. I had so many ideas of what I wanted to sell at TREP$. I couldn't decide between a service and three other products. So I chose to do all four!  I named my business Maddie's Arts and Smarts.

The first idea was to do a tutoring service. I love school and learning new things. I started tutoring first graders after school once a week. This year was my second year tutoring and I love every moment. I wanted to do it more often so I turned it into a business. I named my business Kid2Kid Tutoring. I took a seven- hour babysitting class at Red Cross and received certification. I asked two teachers for a reference, including my tutor supervisor, printed business cards, and created an email. I decided to charge $12-$15 an hour depending on whether students come to me or I go to them.

My passion in addition to learning is art. I started taking classes and discovered that I love to oil paint. I have several of my paintings hanging in my house and whenever my family had company, guests noticed them and told me how talented I was. My mom suggested I print them out on note cards and I loved the idea.  I got them printed and sold a package of six different cards for $5. They were a hit especially with the teachers.

One day my mom came home with mason jars. I drank out of mine every day. It had a cool design and it always kept my drink cold. I liked it so much I wanted to sell something like it. I then looked on Pinterest and found out that there are special markers you can use to draw on the mason jars. I already painted wine glasses in the past and I thought little kids would like the mason jars. I drew all different kinds of logos, including college and sports teams.

The TREP$ Marketplace was going to be on Friday, May 1st and it turned out that the 2nd graders First Holy Communion was the following Sunday. So I made custom mason jars for the Communicants ahead of time, which included a cross, their name and the date. I received so many custom orders and sold out of the ones I made. I sold the pre-made ones for $5 and the custom for $8.

When my mom and I went to Michaels looking for markers we saw wooden picture frames. My mom commented that when I received my First Holy Communion she didn't like most of the frames. I thought I could paint those too, plus I could do a Mother's Day theme. I sold the frames for $5 each. They were really hard to paint, so I wouldn't do them again.

I really enjoyed this whole experience. I learned so much. The people who came to the TREP$ Marketplace really liked my products and service. It was cool to see all my hard work pay off. I got many orders and I plan to continue my business. In fact I am negotiating with a local business to sell my note cards, already have a tutoring job for the summer and mason jar orders keep coming in. I look forward to doing TREP$ again next year.

 

My name is Libby, and I'm in fifth grade at Chester M. Stephens Elementary School in Mount Olive, NJ.  I was really excited to join TREP$. I knew what I was going to make from the start. Water bottles have been polluting the world. I like plants, animals, and nature, so it came to me that I could reuse water bottles to plant herbs for cooking.

My business was called Libby's Green Thumb. To me, my creation looked like a thumb that's green, so that's how the name was born. I got straight to work planting tarragon seeds to sell. I also made kits that had a water bottle filled with soil, an envelope of seeds, and directions for planting. I worked hard preparing for the marketplace. When I was done, I was proud of what I had made.