My name is Jean-Philip. I am a 5th grader at High Bridge Middle School in Hunterdon County, NJ. This was my first experience participating in TREP$. It was quite a journey as I really wasn’t sure what to expect and realized that the amount of work involved was a bit more than what I expected. As an artist, I knew I wanted to incorporate one of my original drawings into my product and was originally thinking t-shirts. However, not knowing what the clientele was expected to be for the Marketplace, I felt that it was too financially risky. So after some consultation and brainstorming with my mom, we decided on playing cards.
My company’s name is ‘Radioactive’ and I decided on a monster face for my cards. My oldest brother, Christian, inspired me to convert my drawing to graphics which ended up being my final art piece. As a graphic design student in college, he has taught me a lot of new and exciting things.
Throughout the TREP$ experience, I grew more and more excited to participate in the Marketplace. On December 6, 2019, I am proud to share that my inventory sold out. Although I didn’t make a lot of profit from the sales, the experience was worth it. I am already brainstorming ideas for TREP$ 2020. I have so many ideas and I can’t wait to start planning, especially now that I have some experience being a young entrepreneur.
Note: Jean-Philip participated in the TREP$ entrepreneurship education program as after-school enrichment, right at school. This extracurricular activity is a PBL (project based learning) experience that helps kids gain an entrepreneurial mindset, financial literacy and life skills to prepare them for and improve their futures.
