WSE operates the Livingston Farmers Market and we use it to teach kids basic business skills, sustainable practices and the importance – and joy – of giving back to their community. We work with kids to develop products they can sell at the Farmers Market.
This is the sixth year children have been allowed to sell goods at the Market. In the beginning it was an after-thought, done as a free service to the community. But after the third year, parents began reporting the positive changes they had seen in their children because of the experience. Children learned to make monetary change, interact with adults, set up displays and sell their products. They also learned some hard lessons about balancing supply with demand, especially when dealing with baked goods, and the importance of reinvesting some of the profits in materials in order to have products to sell at the next week’s market.
Given these results, WSE initiated a Youth Booth Program in 2006. Upon the urging of parents, WSE now charges the children a modest $2.25 booth fee to demonstrate that there are costs to doing business. Our Farmers Market Master advises the kids about products and encourages them along the way. To teach them the importance of giving back to their community, WSE allows the kids to donate their booth profits to the charity of their choice.
In 2008, 21 kids participated in the program. On December 6th the children donated $112 to Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Park County.
WSE is expanding the program to reach more children. In early 2009, we partnered with Junior Achievement to bring the Biz Kids video program to Livingston. Biz Kids is a 13-episode show that teaches children about money and how to take charge of their financial future. We also partnered with the Extension Service to involve 4-H students and Big Brother and Big Sisters.
WSE organized an after-school training that aired the Biz Kids program. The show imparted the theory. WSE provided the mechanism for the children to apply the theory by working with the kids to develop products for them to sell at the 2009 Farmers Market. The program had strong support from Park County Superintendent of Schools, Hannibal Anderson, because children could immediately apply what they learned and directly benefit from the experience.
