Dynamic Entrepreneur honoree uses her businesses to help others

By MIKE BOLLINGER

It’s not always the case that a high school sophomore devotes a good portion of their time and energy toward helping others.

Kaylee Stavlas is that case. Her desire to help people started when she was only eight years old. “I saw a video of Haitian children suffering from malnourishment. They were so hungry they were literally eating mud cakes,” Stavlas said.

Moved by that video, she started a business making “mud cookies.” She rallied her friends, and with help from them and her mother, Laura, ended up raising more than $1,000. That money, she said, was enough to provide food, water and education for Haitians for a year.

This, and other projects she has taken on since, are the reason Stavlas has been named the Johnston Now Honors Dynamic Entrepreneur Award winner. “I want to give back. That has always been important to me,” she said.

Stavlas has also started NEX GEN CEO, a program that empowers the next generation of diverse entrepreneurs to use their businesses for good. Through NEX GEN CEO, she has visited several schools in Johnston County and surrounding areas and is working with the Johnston County Board of Education to get clubs established in schools. Her mother is the co-founder of NEX GEN CEO.

“I try and teach them how they can be the change through their businesses,” she said. “We are targeting diverse communities, minorities and the disabled. One of our main goals is to be inclusive to all.”

NEX GEN CEO recently hosted Smithfield’s first Student Business Fair. For this effort, Stavlas received a proclamation from Smithfield Mayor Andy Moore declaring the day of the event “Next Generation Entrepreneur Day.”

The business fair was designed for students to showcase their businesses and sell products for profit and social impact. “It went really well. Like any event, there were a few issues. A lot of people bought from the student vendors,” Stavlas said. “It was a really cool event overall.”

Laura Stavlas noted there were 17 students from 15 schools participating. Approximately $200 was raised through the event, and that money will go toward scholarships. “We are grateful to the Smithfield Recreation & Aquatics Center for partnering with us and helping us put on the event,” she said.

Kaylee also runs a business called Amazon Angels Boutique. With the help of her grandmother, Maria Vango O’Brien, she paints designs on the backs of denim jackets. All proceeds from that business go toward a tribe living in the Amazon Rain Forest. “They were dying due to a lack of safe drinking water. We’ve been able to provide nine different wells for them,” Kaylee said.

She is also an author. She has written a children’s book, “You Can Change the World,” and she and her mother are working on a book entitled “Beyond Imagining.” The subtitle of that book is “10 steps to unlocking the greatness inside you and your business.” The children’s book is available on Amazon.

“Beyond Imagining,” when published, will hopefully help young entrepreneurs with starting their businesses. Kaylee said she hopes to get the book into local schools once published. “This book will help them to deal with any hardships along the way. Being an entrepreneur is not always a walk in the park,” she said.

While still in high school, she is also taking classes through Southeastern University. “I’ll be able to go into college as a junior. I want to be a corporate lawyer and own my own law firm, and that takes three extra years of school so I wanted to get a head start,” she said.

She is already working toward her law career by serving as a teen attorney in the Durham Teen Court. “It’s an actual court. I help other teens toward getting community service instead of juvenile detention,” Kaylee said.

At the Student Business Fair, a panel of judges chose the best of the student entrepreneurs. One of those judges was Miss Carolina’s Teen Kerrigan Brown. Kaylee, the reigning Miss Smithfield’s Teen, traveled to High Point in June for the Miss Carolina’s Teen pageant in the hopes of following in Brown’s footsteps.

She has been taking opera lessons since last year, and planned to put those lessons to use as her talent for the competition. If she won the competition (which took place before this was published) she wanted to implement NEX GEN CEO clubs in schools in all 100 counties in the state to work with young people wanting to start businesses.

Her message to young entrepreneurs was simple. “In many ways, there is no such ways as failure. Failure is another driver to success. The only time there is failure is giving up. In any business, you have to keep persevering. Some days, you will make a lot of money and other days you will have zero profit,” Kaylee said.

For more information about NEX GEN CEO, visit www. nexgenceo.org, follow them on Instagram at @nexgenceoclub or email nexgenceoclub@gmail. com.