Course teaches young people entrepreneurship through hands-on experience

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BY TIA CAROL JONES

One of the businesses was a fitness boot camp. He was creating t-shirts for the boot camp business and created a t-shirt company.

Brown believed it was more important to teach others how to start a business than to just start a business and that was the inception of the Tee Shirt Store. It combines the education component of starting and running a business, with actually selling t shirts as the business.

Students in grades 4-12 can participate in the 30-hour entrepreneurship course, Education with a Profit. The students can get credit, if it is taught by a Board-certified teacher. Those who participate get a custom apparel website, where they can sell their ideas and designs. The items are drop shipped to the customers, and the young people get 20% from the sells on the 1st and the 15th of the month.

“We give them an actual business to apply that reading and math and all the things they’re learning in school. They get to apply that to their own custom apparel website and business,” Brown said.

To get the course in line with Common Core Education Standards, the course was redesigned in 2022. Education with a Profit is in two School Districts, one in Illinois and the other in Georgia, and in several organizations across the country. The course is delivered in five languages.

The courses include: Defining Entrepreneurship; Running a Small Business; Store Branding; Website Setup; The Design

Process; Community Campaigning; Marketing and Social Media; Customer Service; Financial Literacy; and Law For The Entrepreneur.

Before COVID-19, Brown said there was pushback in trying to shop the idea around to schools. He adjusted the website in order for parents to sign their children up for the course. Once that happened, that is when the school districts became interested. There are four-year scholarships available for young people. The students have to sell 100 shirts for the first year to continue the four-year scholarship. “I’m opening up their eyes to what’s possible in business. If I start them in sixth grade, in six years, they will be going into college and they will have been entrepreneurs for six years, before they even get to college, with repeat customers,” he said.

Brown said the parents are excited about the possibilities that exist with their children’s participation. Brown wanted to find a way into young people’s phones, because he said, that is where they live. With this program, the young people can use their phones to start and run a business.

“We want to create the next generation of entrepreneurs, while giving them a way to apply and earn from it, in their own custom apparel website and business,” Brown said. “I want to give them a legitimate path to earning while they are learning. The Tee Shirt Store can give them a 30-year head start.”

For more information about The Tee Shirt Store, visit www. theteeshirtstore.com, email info@theteeshirtstore.com, or call 877427-0094.