Growing
At last summer’s farm stand, Alex, 7, Patrick, 5 and Catherine, 3 all Devlin, and Declan Paul, 7, just a few of the dozen kids learning to run a small business in The Village,.
Entrepreneurs By Alena Devlin
L
ast summer, COVID changed everything. My very busy active children, then aged 7, 5 and 3, found themselves at home, a lot. Quickly running out of things to do, we decided to grow our own veggie garden. It filled our home schooling requirements for science, physical education - and, it turns out, economics and math. Our little garden was producing a lot, probably because we were home to water it. The 12 kids in our neighbourhood decided to open “The Village Farm Stand,” selling extra fruit and veggies from our gardens, fuelled by their desire to buy their own Android tablets.
Now as a parent I had mixed feelings about this enterprise. On one hand, I was proud that they wanted to learn how to earn money and save towards a goal. On the other, it was going to be a lot of work. I caved because COVID guilt... and what else where we going to do with all this produce before it spoiled? Turns out they are savvy business partners. They learned to pay for supplies, they paid for snacks and drinks for the village of children and paid the moms for our work, too. They calculated how much to charge, and took orders from customers. They shared the profits with the ever growing number of business partners (they multiply like gremlins) and most of all marketing.
hothouse tomatoes • cucumbers cherry tomatoes • bell peppers hot peppers • lettuce • squash broccoli • beans • zucchini kohlarobi • kale • carrots onions cauliflower • cabbage • spinach swiss chard • pickling cucumbers sugar snap peas ...and much more!
Bushmans Farm Organically-grown Fresh Produce Get Bushmans products at the Farmer’s Market, or come visit the Farm!
8556A Plummer Creek Road 604-483-3700
HOME GROWN 2021 • 27
