By Lian Bunny
Assistant News Editor
Six Entrepreneurial Action Us (ENACTUS) members will host a mental and physical business competition for high school students Saturday called FISH Tank.
FISH stands for Financially Innovative Startups for High School Students.
One of the members, sophomore marketing major Cara Waldraff, said it’s their legacy as members of the class.
“It’s our legacy project. By being enrolled in Clare 208 through ENACTUS, we all are required to do a project for our class,” she said.
ENACTUS is an internationally recognized nonprofit organization. At St. Bonaventure, the program is designed to bring students together to gain teamwork skills, leadership experience and develop an entrepreneurial mindset.
This group’s legacy project will count for the students’ final grade in Clare 208: World Views. The team will present their project to Todd Palmer, associate business professor, and two board of trustees members in two weeks. The presentation of FISH Tank will determine their grade in Clare 208.
“The purpose of this event is to get high school students who are interested in business a better look at all of the complex factors that go into running a business, while also participating in lectures to teach them business information and physical activities,” Waldraff said.
Originally, the six students were going to do a “startup weekend,” in which a company does weekend-long events for potential business owners. However, the ENACTUS members did not think there was enough time and interest in the Olean area, so they modified the event for high school students. This included making the event only one day.
Each of the teams will be assigned a mock business: a pizza parlor, a bike shop or a clothing store. Each company will receive $75,000 of fake money. Throughout the day they will learn about different accounting, marketing and other concepts that can be applied to running a business. Students will be in charge of managing and keeping track of their own funds.
Waldraff and freshman marketing major Laurie Anne Wickens will be teaching the lecture on marketing.
“The students will have to make a decision about how they want to market their business through as many or as few forms of advertisement as they would like,” Wickens said. “The different forms of advertising are priced as they would be in the real world.”
AJ Vitanza, junior management and finance major, and Ashley Fallone, freshman accounting major, will be teaching the lecture on management.
Nazarine Caraccioli, senior accounting major and Julie Shevlin, freshman accounting major, will be teaching the lecture on accounting and budgeting. They will be training students on budgeting and raising capital.
“I am hoping to introduce high school students to basic business concepts,” Caraccioli said. “I know I never really had that in high school and it would have been really helpful to have an experience like this before I got into college.”
After attending each lecture, the teams competing will have to make a business decision using the skills they just learned. These decisions will include how to advertise their business and creating a budget.
Physical activities will also be integrated throughout the day. They are intended to teach the students teamwork and leadership skills. The challenges also present opportunities for the teams to earn more money for their business. Each team can win up to $30,000 more for their business.
The tasks involve a rock-climbing wall, flipping a blanket over while standing on it and a water bottle activity that involves trusting your teammates with your weight.
St. Bonaventure accounting professor Edward Bysiek and two other professors from the school of business will judge the competition. At the end of the day, the students will present their business and business-related decisions. Each team will have to account for their spending.
After deliberating, each member of the winning team will win a tablet.
Waldraff said, “I hope that the students can walk away having learned a lot about business and decisions needed to run a business, but also that they had fun while doing it.”
