Mrs. Smith – It has changed the trajectory of this entrepreneurship program and our school because from the grant I got a chance to utilize different software for entrepreneurship. Not only that but through the relationship with the Veale Foundation, I came across Youth Bee Works and this project is phenomenal.

Mrs. Smith – I’ve been in education for a long time. I’m in year 32 of being in a classroom or school setting and I can tell you this hands-on setting is by far so much better than a simulation, or a problem in a book, or a hypothetical. We are hands on, we are making a product, and we are selling it. Then, we are recording and doing the bookkeeping for it. It’s one of the best things we have done truly. We have a business in our school now that is a functioning and operational business.

Mrs. Smith – I feel like the resources that the Veale Foundation has provided have pushed me in this direction in such a fabulous way. Take a chance, it is something that I wasn’t sure how it was going to take off, but it took off. I couldn’t be more pleased with it.

Mrs. Smith – One thing I think the Veale Foundation has pushed me to do is to reach out to students who are selling stuff on Etsy, who are making bracelets or other products on their own, and students who have their own businesses already. I’m in the process of publicizing those businesses on the business department webpage for our school district. That’s something I’m trying to expand this school year. That way students can receive credit for what they’re doing.

Vedant – It was a really good class, it was holistic, we had a lot of paper assignments that would teach you the meat and potatoes of things and we had a lot of guest speakers that would come in and teach you practical things. We had about five to seven guest speakers who ran their own businesses and came and would give us real world advice on their failings and how we could learn from them.

Vedant – Entrepreneurship classes first and foremost teach you how to pitch your ideas because even if you have the best idea possible, unless you can sell it, it’s worth nothing. Even if you don’t plan on running your own business one day, it can teach you loads of things about how businesses work and how you can use them to your advantage.

Mrs. Smith – I became involved with Youth Bee Works when I received a newsletter from the Veale Foundation, and it was asking if I was interested in running a beehive for entrepreneurship. Of course, I clicked on it. The next day, Youth Bee Works called me, and they said, ‘We may have a spot, we may not have a spot, but how interested are you?’ And I said that I was really all in on this. Last semester I had two sections of Entrepreneurship classes, and I had two sections of Building Your Brand classes. Building Your Brand is a social media marketing class. I thought if I could combine those classes that would be amazing. That’s what we did. All 95 students worked on this project. My Entrepreneurship students did the business plan, and my Building Your Brand students did the marketing plan.

Vedant – I definitely learned a lot of team building skills because I had to learn to work with a lot of other kids. We were working together to build the full financial picture that we gave back to Mrs. Smith. I learned a lot doing that. I learned how to deliver something in the business world in a team setting which is really useful. In addition to that, we were working with other departments even though it was all students. For example, we had to work with the beekeeper on things related to how much honey the bees would produce. We had to work with the branding people to decide how much we would spend on labels, stickers, etcetera.

Mrs. Smith – We just had a big rivalry football game between North Royalton and the Brecksville Bees, and we have something called Friday Night Bites, the school brings in food trucks, and I was able to bring Royal Rooftop Honey. We sold out almost immediately. Our honey is gone. Now, I don’t have my entrepreneurship class until next semester so my accounting students are now picking up the balance sheets and spreadsheets that we will use to find out what was our cost of goods sold, profit, revenue, and expenses. I have included entrepreneurship students, accounting students, and Building Your Brand students into this process. It’s really become a business department project even though I’m department of one. The kids are loving it and they’re working hard. Kids are volunteering to sell the honey and decorate the jars and the whole time I have the support of both Youth Bee Works and the Veale Foundation.

Vedant – It’s definitely worth it because anything you can gain from that business or class is something you can use in the real world. Once you leave high school and you’re participating in the job market, these skills will definitely help you regardless of if you want to start your own business or not.

Mrs. Smith – A concept we teach in personal finance is to build wealth and give. One of the things I’m proud of the students for is that they decided they are going to be philanthropic. As part of our mission for Royal Rooftop Honey, we select a charity or person who is struggling at the time, they will receive some of the profits from our honey sales. This particular year, we selected a student who is battling cancer. The students decided that we will give some money to that family to maybe go out to a nice dinner or maybe it’s to do something that they wouldn’t normally do. I’m very proud of the students for doing that and every year we will pick something – it could even be something local here in North Royalton. This was a student driven business. All the ideas came from the students, and I just ran with what they were telling me to do.

Mrs. Smith – When the project began, I decided it was important for my students to hear from a business professional, not just something I read about in a book, someone who has a business background and knowledge. I brought in a business professional, and he was able to talk to us about, what is a mission statement, how do you write a business plan, and what are the steps to creating a business plan. That’s how we started.

Mrs. Smith – I have so much gratitude for both the Veale Foundation and Youth Bee Works. I wouldn’t be doing this without their support. It wouldn’t even be a thought in my mind that we would have Royal Rooftop Honey, with this amazing logo that the students designed. The collaborative teamwork that took place with my students in my classes Building Your Brand and Entrepreneurship. We had to cross between those classes and decide on our logo, our brand, how we were going to advertise, the platform that the most customers were using from our target demographic. There was a lot of work that went into it and the kids did amazing.