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Big intern program aids small business

Eckerd students learn by doing and helping in Childs Park.

By NICK JOHNSON
Published March 18, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG - Student interns from Eckerd College recently started an inventory of all the businesses in Childs Park.

For years, students at Eckerd have been working with the St. Petersburg Business Assistance Center to help small businesses throughout Midtown.

The inventory will help the Business Assistance Center map out all the existing and potential places of business in the neighborhood.

The information will be used to provide the same type of assistance to the Childs Park neighborhood that the BAC and the interns from Eckerd's Midtown Project have been providing in Midtown.

The work began as part of a new initiative announced last September by Mayor Rick Baker, that will use a model similar to the Midtown Initiative to help Childs Park neighborhoods flourish. Deputy Mayor Goliath Davis, who is overseeing the initiative, said work has already begun in the Childs Park neighborhood, based on feedback that the city received from focus groups.

Once the business inventory is complete, the BAC will begin to contact local businesses and offer the assistance of the Eckerd interns. The same services provided to businesses in Midtown will be needed in Childs Park, said Shrimatee Ojah-Maharaj, assistant director at the BAC.

"We got input from the community, and they talked again about basic services," Ojah-Maharaj said. These include everything from help with basic organizational skills, such as inventory, to providing a fresh coat of paint when needed. Interns also help with marketing and expanding the businesses into new markets throughout the area.

Annie Cavazuti, administrative assistant of the Center for the Applied Liberal Arts, who helps coordinate the program at Eckerd College, said the interns will help the businesses any way they can. "We literally sit down and say: 'What is it that we can do for you,' " she said.

Once needs are determined Kayla Esce or Justin Walker, the lead interns at Eckerd, begin to coordinate the effort with the business owner. Recently they were able to help Erline Isaac, who owns the Brotherhood Food Store on 16th Street S in Midtown, with a new business venture. They helped her clean, paint and arrange the building next door to her convenience store, where she has plans to open a new restaurant.

Isaac, a resident of Tampa, was previously a business owner in Boston as well. She said she was hesitant to work with the BAC and the interns at first, but was given the courage to proceed with her plans when she saw how willing they were to help.

"I wish when I was in Boston there was a program like this," Isaac said, "I wouldn't have given up my bakery."

She has since been able to lease the Brotherhood Food Store and can now focus on opening the restaurant. The Eckerd students will provide the same type of aid to the businesses in Childs Park.

The interns are funded by a grant from Progress Energy that is used to help run the program, compensate interns, and buy supplies for the businesses they help. Progress Energy is increasing the grant to provide for the program's coming expansion into Childs Park.

This will allow the interns to continue assisting local businesses while getting the real-world experience the program provides. Lead intern Esce, a human development major at Eckerd, worked with Isaac on her restaurant. "It's been an excellent experience, learning organizational skills, meeting people," she said, "It's the best internship I could have done."

Cavazuti said the Midtown Project has provided interns with experience and that any student from Eckerd can volunteer.

"Eckerd is a bubble," Cavazuti said. "Most students would never see Midtown or Childs Park without this project."

Nick Johnson can be reached at nickjohnson@sptimes.com or 893-8215.

[Last modified March 17, 2007, 20:48:25]