Expanding youth employment opportunities with an entrepreneurial endeavor

Abstract

The Waldport High School (WHS) Kayak Shack is an exemplary youth development project, organized and operated by entrepreneurial students at WHS with support from an AmeriCorps*VISTA member. The project was conceived to address Waldport’s desire to increase employment opportunities for youth, stimulate eco-tourism in the area, and educate youth in small business development. This project demonstrates effective community economic development and capacity building by an AmeriCorps*VISTA member, successful community partnerships with a focus on supporting youth entrepreneurs and creative thinking about hands-on ways to link local resources with youth opportunities. Submitted by LEARNS in summer of 2006.

Issue

Youth may experience difficulty in finding employment for a variety of reasons — an overall weak economy, trouble transitioning from school to the labor force or lack of basic skills.

Action

Oregon Coast Community College's (OCCC) Small Business Development Center worked with Waldport High School to offer a class in entrepreneurship for credit. The class began in February of 2005, with leadership for the program emerging from Guy Faust of OCCC who served as a mentor, supported by an AmeriCorps*VISTA member who focused on capacity-building.

Students from Waldport High School worked together with staff from OCCC, an AmeriCorps*VISTA member and adult advisors to refine and realize a business plan, culminating in a self-sustaining enterprise called the Waldport High School Kayak Shack.
Students made presentations to local businesses and raised financial and in-kind donations from about fifty percent of these contacts.
The store opened with an initial inventory of six kayaks — originally donated to the high school for service and hands-on science learning.
The grand opening took place in conjunction with the local Beachcomber Day celebration.
Marketing plans included the development of a website, the sale of coupon books, and membership in the Chamber of Commerce.
Students learned about safety issues and how to be tour guides; then they set up work schedules for the summer.
Students in the high school shop class fashioned trailers for use in transporting the kayaks from the high school parking lot to the launching site at the Lint Slough.
After seeing the business through its first summer, AmeriCorps*VISTA Amanda Remington, who maintains contact with the group, passed on the ongoing responsibility for the Kayak Shack so that she could nurture other projects of the Oregon Coast Community College's (OCCC) Small Business Development Center.

Context

The Rural Community School Partnership (RSCP) is a collaborative program of the Lincoln County School District, Waldport Schools, the Ford Family Foundation, and local community members, businesses, and organizations. Nurtured by this broad RCSP partnership, the Kayak Shack project involved the collaborative planning of the Small Business Development Center of Oregon Coast Community College (OCCC), an advisory group of local business operators, Waldport High School teachers, and an AmeriCorps*VISTA member.

Outcome

The project demonstrated best practices in the following areas:

Community economic development and capacity building by an AmeriCorps*VISTA member
Successful community partnerships with a focus on supporting youth entrepreneurs
Creative thinking about hands-on ways to link local resources with youth opportunities

All programs of the Waldport community school partnership addressed the following major goals:

Offered a wide range of extended opportunities for both children and adults
Involved and engaged all community members in enhancing the city of Waldport and its economy

Within these broad goals, the Kayak Shack project specifically:

Provided entrepreneurial education to Waldport youth
Stimulated the growth of ecotourism in the Waldport area
Provided summer youth employment opportunities

As a result of the Kayak Shack:

Several students have obtained summer employment through a business of their own design
High visibility and good publicity have inspired additional community efforts to attract tourists into the area
The entrepreneurial class is a regular part of the high school curriculum, with new enterprises planned each year
Students have come to realize that their community can be a viable place to live and work

Evidence

Now in its second summer of operation as a business, the Kayak Shack:

Provides summer employment for high school youth
Creates a career pathway for youth (one Kayak Shack graduate is now working towards her own kayak rental business)
Instructs youth in the process of creating and implementing a business plan
Returns earned income to pay youth salaries and cover operating expenses
Engages the business community as advisors and supporters of student-generated business

Additionally:

Plans are being made to expand Kayak Shack services to accommodate school year field trips from school throughout Oregon.
New volunteer opportunities for adults as "Friends of the Kayak Shack" are being generated to help teach about the environment and provide supervisory relief during the summer months.
Waldport High School Kayak Shack and the students received an award for excellence from Rural Development Initiatives for an outstanding youth project in Oregon.
Guy Faust, Small Business Development Center Director, and Clarice Sullivan, Coordinator of the Rural Community School Partnership Program — both of Oregon Coast Community College — are scheduled to present "Waldport High School’s Kayak Shack: Blending Learning with Economic Growth" at the Global Youth Microenterprise Conference, September 2007, in Washington, D.C.