Partnerships Prepare
Youth to Be Entrepreneurs

Often when people think of economic development, they think of manufacturing and retail sales. In many regions, this does not hold true. Maine’s economy is multi-faceted with many businesses thriving and contributing to economic growth in small niche markets and specialty services. The Northern Maine Development Commission (NMDC) is helping young entrepreneurs to succeed in running their own businesses.

Golden Harp & Cello's Stefanie and Jennifer Berube

Golden Harp & Cello
Maine’s Small Business Administrat-ion’s Young Entrepreneurs of the Year - 2001 are musicians. Fourteen year old twins Stefanie and Jennifer Berube play the harp and cello and run the “Golden Harp & Cello.” Their five-year-old business provides music for weddings, dinners and other community events. The sisters also sell harp notecards and sea glass necklaces.

The twins started playing music at age seven. Their business activities took off when they needed bigger instruments: a new harp costs $8,000 and a new cello and bow $4,000. The sisters decided to help earn the funding and became salespeople. Musical notecards were developed and printed and the girls set out door-to-door selling the cards in Presque Isle and Bangor. They validated their business with a Maine State Sales Tax Identification Number and as contributors to Maine’s economy.

These young entrepreneurs were counseled by Rodney Thompson, Director of the Northern Maine Development Commission’s Small Business Development Center. Thompson gave them valuable information on starting their own business, from printing business cards to marketing. They joined the Presque Isle Chamber of Commerce and are also charter members of The University of Maine at Presque Isle’s Business Associates Program.

The twins’ musical careers have also soared. They have performed with the Bangor Symphony Youth Orchestra, Kneisel Hall Young Musician’s Program, and the Northern Maine Chamber Society. They also play at weddings, festivals, dinners and other parties. An important part of the girls’ business are charitable performances, such as performing for a cancer survivor group, AIDS benefit, and Governor King’s Inaugural Breakfast in Limestone. They make it a point to play for the Salvation Army’s kettle drive every year.

By having a business, the girls believe they get more experience playing in different settings, expose more people to music, and, at the same time, participate in the Maine economy. They are pleased to present the arts as cultural tourism and a viable part of Maine’s economy.

The girls plan to keep their business together, perhaps make a CD and develop a business plan for the upcoming year. They are currently developing a website.

Senator Collins visits Fort Fairfield High School's Students Baking a Living. The senator joined the students to produce some top quality pizza.

Students Baking a Living
Located at Fort Fairfield High School in Fort Fairfield, Maine, one of Maine’s most depressed areas, Students Baking a Living is a student-run bakery that uses service learning as a model to operate a business and market products. The students, school and community believe entrepreneurial skills are invaluable assets to today’s youth, because these skills teach complex thinking, responsibility and self-esteem, and create valuable opportunities for the future.

The program is the brainchild of four high school juniors, who wrote and submitted the proposal outlining how they planned to develop their bakery, as well as marketing, financial and business management skills.

The students’ grantwriting has paid off. They have received funding from the Maine Community Foundation’s Aroostook County Fund, Libra Foundation and the Harvest Fund at Maine Initiatives. Organizations within the community, such as the Lions Club and the Rotary Club, donated money to help the students get the project started. School cooks donated the baking oven, in which they can bake several pizzas and several loaves of bread at the same time. The NMDC Small Business Development Center business workshops and seminars are open to the students.

In May 2000, the business became a licensed bakery after eight months of dedicated work by a few students. Today their bakery has expanded to include 70 students whose academic abilities vary from those at the top of their class and those that are struggling to stay in school. The diversity allows them to accomplish goals related to becoming socially responsible citizens.

Students Baking a Living is fortunate to have community business leaders serve as mentors. According to Jerrod LaPointe, program coordinator, “Jim Amaral of Borealis Breads has been our guiding light since this project began over two years ago.” Amaral suggests involving the community in all of the students’ endeavors. During the summer, a few students participate in internships at Borealis Breads. Those who go to the Wells, Maine bakery bring new and innovative ideas back with them to Students Baking a Living. Amaral, also president of Maine Businesses for Social Responsibility, recently spent a day with eight students to show them the components of marketing.

One of the focuses of this venture is social responsibility and strengthening their community. They try to be creative and practical in solving problems, by providing food for soup kitchens, food banks, homeless shelters, school functions and nonprofit agencies serving the community. They deliver wholesale nutritional bread products to area grocery stores. Each week a meal is provided to residents and staff at a local nursing home, and families coping with change are remembered with baked products. Students enjoy planning and catering meals, writing grants and speaking to organizations about the program. Students Baking a Living chooses to use organically grown Maine ingredients to support local farmers and businesses whenever possible.

Student bakers are teaching young elementary school students how to bake and encouraging them to follow in their footsteps. They regularly have students aged four to ten visit the bakery in order to encourage them to decide upon a service learning project that will benefit the community.

Students Baking a Living are proud members of the Fort Fairfield Chamber of Commerce, which recently honored them as Fort Fairfield’s Outstanding Business of the Year. Recently they were awarded the Making the Grade Award from the Maine Board of Education. The student participants’ primary goal is to operate a socially responsible business while serving the community.

For more information about the Golden Harp & Cello, contact Stefanie and Jennifer Berube at (207) 768-3235; contact Jerrod LaPointe of Students Baking a Living at 28 High School Drive, Suite A, Fort Fairfield, ME 04742 or bakery@ffmhs.sad20.k12.me.us.

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