Junior Achievement Honours Graduates Of Student Entrepreneurship Program
MONCTON – Junior Achievement NB celebrated 45 students from Moncton who completed the organization’s 19-week entrepreneurship program at the 11th Futures Unlimited Gala & Silent Auction Wednesday evening.
With 200 students having taken part in the program across the province this year, JANB will also hold similar events in Fredericton and Saint John.
Sixteen-year-old Nathaniel Ledoux is a second-year participant in the program, in which students build and run a business, as well as receive mentorship.
He says the gala is “a way to celebrate everyone who stuck with the program.”
While the experience “was fun” and he plans to do the program again in the next two years, it is a lot of work. Ledoux’s own team started with 30 people and ended with 11.
He says what he likes the most was the teamwork and the pride that comes with the work. He also learned “how to run a company” as he’s CEO of the business this year.
“You’re talking to your team and working together, which I love,” he said. “And then you’re going out and doing a pitch on this product that you’re proud of. So it’s the feeling of showing, ‘hey, we did this. We think you’ll like it,’ and the happiness you get when someone does like it.”
This year, Nathaniel is the CEO of his company, which consists of students from Moncton High, Riverview High, Bernice McNaughton High and Harrison Trimble High. Their product was called ‘cookies in a jar.’
“We took a group member’s special cookie recipe and put all the dry ingredients in a jar and we were selling them with a tag that included what to add and how to bake them,” he said.
Some of the other products student groups in the program came up with include popcorn mix and hot chocolate mix in a box, and environmentally-friendly utensils made out of wood.
Wayne McDonald, SVP of corporate relations at J.D. Irving Limited, gave the keynote speech to more than 300 members of the business community and students who attended.
JANB is part of a national non-profit organization that aims to prepare and inspire youth to succeed in a global economy. It offers business education programs related to work readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy for free to elementary, middle and high schools.