Luverne High School graduates Susan Thompson, Emily Wendland, Tatiana Gust and Zoe Brown along with current students James Erickson, Christopher Jelken and Emilie Bartels recently attended a summer business camp through sponsorships provided by the KAHR Foundation.
In total, more than 100 companies provided sponsorships for students to attend the BestPrep’s Minnesota Business Venture camp at little to no cost.
MBV is a weeklong business and career skills camp held each July in partnership with the Herberger Business School at St. Cloud State University and the Donald McNeely Center for Entrepreneurship at St. John’s University.
This is the second year Thompson and Gust attended the camp. They returned this year as camp counselors.
More than 300 students representing 96 schools spent a week of their summer preparing for life after high school, developing workplace skills, and improving their financial literacy skills.
“MBV is a unique opportunity for high school students to gain skills that will help them now and in their future. Going through a mock interview, learning about finances, working in a diverse team, communicating with adults and peers, and speaking in public are all skills that help prepare students for success in school and future jobs,” explained MBV Program Manager Amanda Labo.
Participants worked with team of students to come up with an innovative new business idea within a four-day period, make a presentation to a panel of investors, and ask for a loan.
Before tackling their business plans, students got to learn from a variety of Minnesota business professionals and entrepreneurs to help them prepare.
Throughout the program, more than 190 individuals came to MBV to share their experiences and business insights with the future workforce by volunteering as breakout session presenters, mock interviewers, financial advisers, and more.
Speakers represented companies such as 3M, Allstate, General Mills, Pearson’s Candy, and the Minnesota Timberwolves. The speakers covered a wide range of topics such as managing personal finance, experiences in entrepreneurship, business ethics, and building one’s personal brand.
Local business professionals, known as resident business leaders, served as mentors to the students throughout the program. These volunteers, from companies such as Allianz Life, Ecolab, Travelers, Thrivent Financial, and Securian Financial, lived on campus for the week and guided a “company” of students through the creation of a business plan.
BestPrep’s Minnesota Business Venture has more than 11,000 program alumni.
In addition to MBV, BestPrep offers five additional programs: Classroom Plus, eMentors, Financial Matters, The Stock Market Game, and the Technology Integration Workshop.
For more information about BestPrep or MBV, please visit www.bestprep.org.
The KAHR Foundation is a family foundation started in 2005 by Jeannine Rivet and Luverne native Warren Herreid II for philanthropic endeavors. The letters of the foundation stand for their mothers’ maiden surnames: Kahler, Archambault, Herreid and Rivet.