Small business to fiscal fitness

The Pierce College Farm Center may have had its beginnings in fields filled with pumpkins for the first Harvest Festival, but in the nine years following, it has become a thriving business year-round.

Launched in 2005 with $10 million in bond funding, the Harvest Festival was a way to meet the goals of the Enterprise Group, which existed at Pierce to “provide alternative sources of funding to support Pierce’s academic programs,” according to the group’s 2004-05 annual report.

The Enterprise Group sought to create sustainable income through the Agriculture Educational Center, and brought Robert McBroom on as operator to run the Harvest Festival. McBroom said he worked closely with then-President Rocky Young and followed the vision and business plans from the college.

“The Harvest Festival year one, 2005: absolute home run,” McBroom said. “We had to re-evaluate: are we doing a farm, or a Harvest Festival operation? Immediately the next year, we’re opening up the market, we’re starting to grow summer produce, years ahead of original foresight and projections.”

As the years have progressed, so has the development of the vision plan, with the addition of the Pizza Farm, field trip projects and Christmas tree sales, to name just a few, while also providing more jobs for Pierce students than any other program on campus, according to McBroom.

Third year Pierce student Anthony Russo, 20, is one of those students hired for a seasonal job at the Farm Center, and although he has only just started working, he said he likes the way McBroom and his wife run the center.

“I really, really like the way they do it. They realize that it’s a lot of people’s first job here, they don’t really say, ‘here’s your training manual, now go.’ They take their time to really lay it down and do it step-by-step,” Russo said. “Very thorough, very detailed.”

McBroom said he’s happy with the connection he has with Assistant Professor of Horses Science Patty Warner and her students: the Farm Center’s ponies are utilized by the Equestrian Center during the school year, and then in the fall, a “tremendous amount” of those students are hired to work with the animals.

“There’s this great relationship of utilization and connection. We find that we have dedicated staff, someone that absolutely cares about the welfare of the animal,” McBroom said. “They’ve had an expert and an academic that has gone through and actually physically shown them techniques, and they’ve gotten to know the ponies, and then they come over here and they get a job.”

For now, the staff is busy with all those pumpkins growing in the Pierce fields, although the school does not have the acreage necessary to produce as many as they will sell.

“In nine years, the demand has grown to where we now deal with other farmers, and bring in,” McBroom said. “We’re expecting to sell 240,000 pounds of pumpkins. That’s a lot of pumpkins. A river of orange, so to speak.”

McBroom continues to follow the vision plan to grow the Farm Center and has several projects in mind, the one he’s “been dying to do” incorporating bugs. He wants to teach kids how to identify which bugs are the heroes and which are the villains. “It’s a bug’s life” will be just one more program to enhance business and community outreach.

As a community service operation, the Farm Center is able to control the budgets, make improvements, continue the sustainability, and be able to take a large sum of bond-funded money and divert it back into education, according to McBroom.

“You’re looking at a facility that is now 9 years old, that hasn’t spend $1 of bond money,” McBroom said. “When you can turn around and show that you can make something work, and you’re following a vision plan, and you’re fulfilling a need, and you’re listening: that’s something to be proud of.”

Nelger Carrera / Roundup Josh Stevens sprays whip cream on a freshly made funnel cake at the, “Worlds Best Funnel Cake,” booth on the Pierce College Farm Center in Woodland Hills Calif., during the Harvest Festival Sept. 28, 2013.

Genna Gold News Editor

Many people wait for opportunities to come to them, while others take the bull by the horns and spin something out of nothing.

For Joshua Stevens, a 26-yearold Pierce College small business management student, creating his own path has always been his ultimate goal.

Straight out of high school at 18 years old, the Van Nuys, Calif. resident couldn’t take the thought of working for “the man,” so he enrolled in Pierce’s Small Business Management program.

Soon, he was taking the knowledge gained from class and applying it to the real world through his small business, West Coast Fun Foods.

“I used to enjoy when the teacher would give the class a situation like, ‘Say you had this many hotdog carts…’ and I’d raise my hand and say something like, ‘Well in my business … ’” Stevens said. ”It was a pretty awesome experience.”

Stevens began to create the framework for his very first business funnel cake venture with just $1,000.

“I had a partner for the first few months, he just must have been more sane than me,” Stevens said laughing.

The first location where the “Worlds Best Funnel Cakes” set up shop was at the Northridge Mall Farmer’s Market. Stevens still sells his food there in addition to other locations like the Los Angeles County Fair and Pierce’s own Halloween Harvest Festival.

“The Harvest Fest was our very first long-running event,” Stevens said. ”We absolutely love coming back each year.”

After the success of the funnel cakes, Stevens couldn’t help but continue to grow his business. He decided to keep with the food theme and start a lemonade stand, too.

Although food wasn’t the driving passion behind the business, he felt he found his niche and decided to stick with it.

“Who doesn’t like food anyway,” Stevens said. “Lemonade and funnel cake, the perfect combo -- one for each hand.”

The business has been successful enough to allow Stevens to begin to dabble in the world of selling his products wholesale.

The Harvest Fest has been having Stevens’ funnel cakes and lemonade at the event for the past six seasons and has added in the last few seasons his shaved ice cart and “Salt and Pepper,” which has more of a gourmet food truck feel.

“It’s been amazing to be able to be a part of such a great group of people who truly want the business to succeed,” Jake Ortiz, a 20-year old employee at Stevens’ shaved ice cart, said. “The camaraderie between everyone is unbeatable, this is definitely one of the best jobs I’ve ever had.”

Connor Bruno, a 20-year-old employee at Salt and Pepper, admits that the heat, dust, and exhaustion can get to him at times, but the interactions he shares with the public keeps him coming back each year.

“It’s a lot of dirty hard work,” Bruno said. “You really have to love it -- if your heart’s not in it, you won’t last in this business.”

Not only has the Halloween Harvest Festival helped boost the publicity of the growing business, but each year they’ve returned to the Festival, their profits have risen by at least 30 percent, Stevens said.

Robert McBroom, the Farm Center manager, admits that Stevens’ stands hold a special place in the Festival family.

“At first I didn’t want to sell it,” Stevens said. “I wanted my own thing, that no one else could have.”

After he had grown tired of the constant requests for his secret recipe, Stevens said he finally gave in and started selling to mostly small Mexican restaurants around the valley.

Not only can his funnel cake mix be purchased, but he has begun to sell his shaved ice carts as small franchises to people interested in owning their own business, “without all of the royalties,” Stevens said.