BY LAURA STEVENS
The second Annual Business Challenge, hosted by Sudbury Secondary School (SSS), introduced 11 brand new businesses to the Sudbury community on Tuesday.
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These businesses were developed by the 2004 SSS Entrepreneurship class.
The list of the businesses introduced at the in-school challenge are Hoofin' It Out - Horse Services, owned by Melissa Baxter; Draken Skateboard Ramps, Darcy Clarke; Holly Cline's Perspective, Holly Cline; Extreme Extensions, Pearl Crate; Debassige Vision Workshops, Patricia and Jordan Debassige; SAE Women's Pants, Sarah Edmunds; Eliot's In-home Salon, Eliot Johnstone; Joseph Kennedy, Songwriter, Joseph Kennedy; Garden of Eden, Pet Resort and Spa, Crystal Provencher; M.D. Photos, Cheryl Sutton; NxPnsive Recordings, Mobile Studio owned by Nathan Pelkman.
The purpose of the challenge was to help students develop their promotion, presentation and salesmanship skills. It also gave them a great opportunity to network with local business people.
According to John Sauve, the businesses will be participating in the following competitions; The Fed Nor Business Challenge, The (new) Province of Ontario Business Challenge, The Aboriginal Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge (AYEC) 2004, The Ontario Business Educators' Association (OBEA) Business Challenge, and The Summer Company Program. Some of these students have a chance at winning either a $3,000 or $10,000 grant from these competitions.
The Vision Workshop is a brother-sister owned business. They will be entering into the Aboriginal Youth Challenge.
According to the 15 and 16 year old presenters, the workshops will benefit all ages but, they will be geared to Aboriginal youth between the ages of 10 to 25.
"Being a young age, 15 and 16 years old, we can relate to a younger audience," said Jordan Debassige. "We welcome Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal youth to our workshops."
A typical workshop would include the Seven Grandfather Teachings, cultural singing, dancing and drumming, Modern Day Aboriginal Family Life and, The Debassige Family Vision for Aboriginal People.
According to Patricia Debassige, to better illustrate the workshops message, both Patricia and Jordan take examples from their own personal experiences. They have also gained important values from their dad, who is a professor at Cambrian College.
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"Our father instilled these important values in us," said Patricia Debassige. "We want to promote these values and we want to be registered as a business and in order to do this we need to promote as much as we can."
For additional information on these workshops by the Debassige's, call (705) 674-9264 or log on to debassigevision.com
Holly Cline of Holly Cline's Perspective, said she wants to stay in the north for now and then branch out later on.
"My focus is to target teenage readers," said Holly Cline. "I want to focus on fashion and mainly anything that interests teenagers."
Upon graduation from high school, Cline would like to enroll in the journalism program at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario.
According to Cline's brochure, her articles will be sold at a low cost of only $75 each. Each article written, are meant to reach a variety of readers with different opinions and beliefs.
Eliot's In-home Salon owned by Eliot Johnstone, is a beauty care service salon geared to women over 50.
"I believe it is really important to focus on seniors," Johnstone said. "I have a lot of positive relationships with people older than myself."
Johnstone has gained these friendships through her nana. Johnstone has been attending Folk art classes with her nana, which gives Johnstone an opportunity to obtain potential clients.
"I try to keep my prices low as opposed to other salons in Sudbury," Johnstone said.
According to Paul Sauve, the event organizer of the business challenge, three cash prizes were given out to the participants of the business challenge, worth $120, $70, and $35.
