ESTEVAN - A new group of Estevan Comprehensive School students has dived into the world of business.
The ECS Entrepreneurship 30 class, led by teacher Maisy Daoust, created and successfully sold the first batch of their product.
This year 20 students involved in the class chose to go with scented candles. In the fall of 2022, they were learning all about the world of business, formulating ideas and making a plan, and then, towards the end of the year, students started preparing the product. They chose Prairie Candle Co. for their business name.
While working on their business, students had to figure out everything from idea and name to pricing, production, advertising, marketing and more. In their business model, four-ounce scented candles were priced at $7 each, and the eight-ounce candles are $12.
The first sale was slated for Jan. 18-26 at ECS, yet students sold out the approximately 100 candles they'd made by that point in the first day. They had to stop production at the end of January for finals, but they plan to get back to it once the exams are done and have another sale. After the success of the first group, they decided to make the second and potentially last batch bigger, and the plan is to have a sale taking place in mid-February.
"We're going to restart up and do just one more selling. We will have a bigger batch. And they haven't decided yet if it's just going to be school selling or if we're going to take it out into the community," Daoust shared.
Students work in groups, which represent different departments responsible for various tasks. This way they were learning about how a business works in the real world.
Barrett Fleck and Arin Park were co-presidents of the project. Kate Schmidt and Robert Mitchell were responsible for the human resources department; Jeff Martin Albofera, Alecia Wiebe and Kelsey Dryden were involved with the finance department; Rachel St. Onge, Kailey Wolfe and Hailey Duke dealt with technology; Arabella Cheska Boloto, Armita Kiaei, Hailey Gardiner and Brenna Sellsted were working in the marketing division; Olivia Wallewein, Zaylan Schlingmann and Brooklynn Sullivan were responsible for sales; the production department was the responsibility of Jazmine Mae Espina and Maddy Schulz; and William Clayton took healthy and safety, corporate social responsibility and environmental department.
The business project that students came up with is done under the school program. If participating students want to take it further and continue with their business outside the curriculum, they'd need to run it by the school and then apply for and acquire all necessary permits and licences. Some previous Entrepreneurship 30 classes did that, however, Daoust said it seems that the current class just wants to do one more round to complete the program.
She added the students were pretty independent in this project. They completed their research and then decided on the idea, product and its aesthetics, company name, logo, labelling and much more.
"They do vote and they make decisions on what they think they would like to incorporate or what they would like," Daoust explained.
Students had various roles, which allowed them to learn particular tasks and sides of entrepreneurship, as well as about communication within the business. They also had two co-presidents who would step in and help resolve any arising issues.
