Fashioning your own career

Flipping burgers is not the only way for kids to make money. Entrepreneurship builds character in young people, a business consultant says.

By JERROD DOUSE
© St. Petersburg Times
published December 17, 2001

Are you tired of asking your parents for money? Are you too young to get hired at Burger King? Some teenagers have solved that problem by becoming entrepreneurs, going into business for themselves.

"It's all about creativity and individuality," says 15-year-old Miles Poole, who has decided to make and sell hip-hop fashions with a friend, Ashlie Briggs, 16. Miles designs clothes, mostly loose-fitting denim pants and big shirts, and Ashlie, who also designs clothing on her own and makes the items to order for friends, has agreed to sew some of Miles' fashions. The 10th-graders at Gibbs High School in St. Petersburg made samples and have taken several orders for the items, which range from $25 to $35 depending on the fabric cost.

Miles says he was looking for a way to be creative, make a little money and give his customers a way to stand out from the all-too-common Tommy Hilfiger outfit. "Without your own style, what's going to make you different?"

Ashlie, who has been sewing since she was 8 under the influence of her grandmother, says she "hopes to get some kind of career out of sewing."

Miles also hopes to make some money by selling CDs he and some friends have recorded.

He's calling his record label Milky Records, and he hopes to record other local musicians.

Coming up with your own business ideas and making them happen is good for young people, says Stephanie M. Brown, owner of Ambassador Business Solutions, a consulting company. "Entrepreneurship accomplishes most characteristics needed in life," she says.

Even if you don't think you have a "business sense" like Miles and Ashley, there are ways to learn. Mrs. Brown and Diane Overton, whose business is Realized Potential Training Institute, teach an entrepreneurship class for kids and teenagers at Wildwood Recreation Center, 2650 10th Ave. S, St. Petersburg. The class for students as young as 6 covers basic economics such as supply and demand, pricing, marketing and sales, and how to write a business plan, as well as how to build self-esteem and potential. The class meets Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 4 to 7 p.m. For more information, call the center, (727) 893-7750.

Jarred Carter, 13, an eighth-grader at Pinellas Park Middle School, attended Brown's entrepreneurial class and says it "was pretty cool." He learned enough to start his own T-shirt business with the help of his mom, who enrolled him in art classes. He designed and sold T-shirts for members of his church, Mount Zion Progressive, to wear in the Martin Luther King Jr. parade.

Doesn't hanging out at the mall spending your own money sound better than always having to beg your parents for those green sheets of paper?

- Jerrod Douse, 14, is in the ninth grade at St. Petersburg High School.

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