Entrepreneur Kids Club members Luke Tucci (left) and Marley Morin are ready to take your lip balm order!
In perhaps its most ambitious business venture yet, the Entrepreneur Kids Club at Broadalbin-Perth Intermediate School researched, planned, designed and have been selling customized lip balms during the winter holiday season.
The project began more than a year ago, when the club’s market research team, clipboards in hand, fanned out across the cafeteria during lunch. Their task: Find a need they could fulfill.
What was something that students in all grade levels at BPIS commonly used? Once the team settled on lip balm, the 12-member club brainstormed flavors, settled on a design and color scheme and researched 12 to 15 different lip balm production companies.
“Our plan was to market to our students with a well-known theme that our district leaders put in place a year ago,” club adviser and fourth-grade teacher Dianne Magliocca said.
So they decided to coordinate the look (and taste) of their lip balms with the colors and designs of B-P’s core values. For example, to represent the core value of courage, they offered “Courageous Berry” as a flavor. For inclusion, they came up with “Inclusive Cotton Candy,” and so on.
“We just used that emblem for our sticks because we knew our community recognized it, and it aligned with our mission,” Magliocca said.
In previous years, the club of fourth- and fifth-graders sold homemade slime, healthy snack bags, Christmas variety items (bought and resold), homemade chocolate pretzels and Oreos and Easter baskets.
This project, however, required them to think big.
They ordered 2,500 balm sticks from a production company in the South and sold them in the lead-up to Christmas for $2 each ($2.50 with a matching bow). As of early February, the club had sold about 800 and was hoping for another bump in sales for Valentine’s Day. Lip balms also will still be available for purchase when students return from February break, or buyers can complete this online order form.
The Entrepreneur Kids plan to use any proceeds from the lip balm sales to fund scholarships for B-P graduates who plan to study business. They’re already in discussions with Charla Simonson, high school counselor, to help set those up once all the sticks have been sold.
“It would mean so much for our club to come full circle and support the kids who support us!” Magliocca said.
The post Entrepreneur Kids Club’s latest sale a lip-smacking success appeared first on Broadalbin-Perth Central School District, Broadalbin, NY.