YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS: It’s Winter Festival time all week at Princeton Middle School, with 28 pop-up stores, each one established by a team of seventh grade entrepreneurs, springing up in the Main Commons. (Photo courtesy of Kelly Riely) 

By Donald Gilpin

Twenty-eight pop-up shops — each a carefully structured business venture — are filling the main commons at Princeton Middle School (PMS) this week, offering an appealing array of foods, clothing items, crafts, jewelry, origami, holiday ornaments, and much more.

Run by teams of highly motivated seventh graders, these shops are commercial ventures to be sure, but they are also exercises in social activism and hands-on entrepreneurial education.

In just the first day, Monday, of the school’s Winter Festival, the businesses raised more than $700, with all the earnings going to social causes chosen by the students. The event has raised many thousands of dollars in past years, according to “entrepreneurship, career, and readiness” teacher Kelly Riely, who leads the project as part of the PMS extracurricular program.

“It’s a really cool project,” she said. “It really is a tribute to the student entrepreneurs and their selection of their favorite social causes. It’s effective social activism and entrepreneurship in one.”

She noted that the students chose many different recipients for their earnings, including St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, HomeFront, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, and others. Some of the seventh grade businesses have chosen

to use their funds to purchase holiday gifts for needy local children.

Riely described the business teams as “super-organized.” Each day the seventh graders set up their tables in the Main Commons. When the other PMS students arrive in the morning they go to a ticket booth to purchase tickets, and they shop the stores with their tickets. The businesses must keep track of their tickets each day to make sure they can cover their expenses. “If they took out a loan from me, they have to pay it back,” Riely said.

By the end of the week the entrepreneurs will have all their tickets. They’ll total up their earnings, pay back their loans, and present their final results on their website. “We’ll go over what went well and what they need to work on,” Riely said. “Then they’ll write a letter to the organization they’re donating to, sharing their experience and why they believe the selected organization aligns with their store’s brand.”

Riely emphasized the complexity of the process and the value of the learning experience. “They utilize different skills,” she said. “There will be one in each group who does the accounting and the calculations and works on all the math. Then you’ll have somebody on the sales side, organizing how they’re going to sell everything, what the set-up of the store is going to look like, when they’re going to make announcements, and who’s going to be out there selling.”

Riely continued, “The marketing team comes up with a slogan and a logo, and also designs the store front and the posters and the flier. Then there’s quality control. They have to make sure everything is packaged correctly, with nothing broken, nothing out of order.  They’ll check everything every day to make sure all of their items are ready to be sold. They join all of their skills and expertise together to work on the project.”

Noting the excitement and focus that the Winter Festival brings to the school at this time of year, Riely added, “It really becomes a marketplace where the kids can shop and interact with each other, and they support causes that are important.”

Riely, who has taught at PMS for 20 years, explained that the Winter Festival project is the culmination of a two-month introduction to entrepreneurship for half the seventh graders.  In the second half of the year, she organizes a Spring Carnival for the other half of the seventh grade, with students taking on similar entrepreneurial roles to create games, raffles, and prizes for what Riely described as a “circus-type” event. 

Princeton Public Schools Acting Superintendent Kathleen Foster is one of the many fans of the PMS Winter Festival. “We’re always working on 21st century skills, and we know that many of the jobs that our children will have don’t even exist yet,” she said.  “Creativity, problem-solving, and communication are a few of the entrepreneurial skills they will need, and the middle school is working to create business opportunities and to put some of these entrepreneurial skills into action.”

She continued, “These students who are pursuing these real-world problem-solving ideas are promoting and getting support for their businesses and learning real-world skills in the process.”

Riely reflected on the particular qualities of middle schoolers that help to make this project successful. “They’re super-creative, and it’s a good opportunity for them to learn now,” she said. “You’re never too young to start a business. You’re never too young to take your skills and apply them. Now’s the time.”