In a year like no other, 14 students from three rival high schools were given a challenge: Create a business out of thin air.
A few months later, this group of teens from Madison launched Mad City Apparel, a company that sells T-shirts that sport a positive message. Their first product is a creative effort to help put the coronavirus and the chaos that was 2020 in the rearview mirror.
The shirt, with cute, socially distant stick figures, says “Six feet Apart But Still Standing.” You can buy one (for the appropriate price point of $20.20) at ShopMadCityApparel.com. Their motto: “Making Alabama a better place, one shirt at a time.”
The team – all part of Madison’s Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities, or CEO, class – originally had planned to put on some kind of event, but COVID-19 nixed that fast.
“We were just like, ‘You know, we’re probably going to have to adjust and take a pivot,’” said Jonah Roberts, a James Clemens High School senior who is the CEO of Mad City Apparel.
It was a clever and timely pivot, and if they reach a sales goal of $8,386, all 14 students will get a $599 grant to start their own individual businesses.
The Madison CEO program, part of a national effort of the Midland Institute for Entrepreneurship, was spearheaded by Madison business leaders and is now part of the curriculum at three high schools in the city: James Clemens, Bob Jones High and St. John Paul II Catholic High.
The team has met nearly every day since school started Aug. 5, mostly over Zoom, but a few times in a grocery store parking lot and in Dublin Park (outside and socially distant, of course). As they organized, Jonah was named CEO, Belle Buerhle of JP II was named CFO and Will Bao of Bob Jones was named CFO.
The members of Madison's CEO Class and their advisers meet in a grocery store parking lot to keep socially distant and safe from COVID-19.
The rest of the young biz whizzes are Will Bao, Bob Jones, Alaina Burnham, a James Clemens senior; Micah Burrows, a James Clemens junior; Lauren Chambers, a James Clemens senior; Ian Finney, a Bob Jones senior; Sija Headrick, a Bob Jones senior; Bryson Hewell, a James Clemens junior; Leah Lessmann, a Bob Jones, junior; Rebecca Meyer, a Bob Jones senior; Sam Pope, a Bob Jones junior; Sam Uchitel, a Bob Jones junior; and Raven Williams, a James Clemens junior.
Michael and Suzanne Katschke, self-employed business owners from Madison, are the class facilitators. They keep the kids goal-oriented and provide mentorship, and brought in other business leaders to tell the students their stories of success and of failure.
The students have already had a small taste of starting a business from scratch. To qualify for the class, they each had to turn $1 into $100.
“There were a lot of cookies and brownies made,” Jonah joked.
But it wasn’t all bake sales. Rebecca Meyer, a Bob Jones senior, made $180 turning trash into treasures. For example, she reupholstered an old chair she found by the side of the road, and refurbished and updated a discarded suitcase, netting a tidy profit on both.
“I wanted to target my business around flipping things that people were throwing away,” Rebecca said.
Another class member, Jonah said, rebuilt two junked lawnmowers he found on the roadside and sold them.
The Mad City Apparel website launched last week, with help from a local business partner, 5Boys Apparel, in Madison’s Jetplex Industrial Park. 5Boys helped the kids create their design and will handle production and host their website.
They plan to roll out a couple more designs in the next week or two, and have just a couple of months to sell enough shirts to qualify for their $599 grants for their individual businesses.
The money they make on the T-shirts will go to the Alabama Small Business Development Center, to help other local entrepreneurs, especially those hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’re a small business and we want to help other small businesses that have struggled in this time to get back on their feet,” said Jonah. “Whatever’s left over will go to next year’s Madison CEO class.”
Shelly Haskins writes about points of pride statewide. Email your suggestions to shaskins@al.com, or tweet them to @Shelly_Haskins using #AlabamaProud
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Alabama students turn 2020 chaos into a business plan - al.com
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