My name is Adelaide. I am 9 years old and am in fourth grade at Ridgewood Avenue School in Glen Ridge, NJ. My company is Xiao Li’s Bees. Xiao Li is my Chinese name. I sell seeds for you to plant in your garden. The seeds are a special mix of seeds that pollinators, especially bees, like. Bees are endangered because of dangerous pesticides and a few other reasons. I wanted to help endangered animals, along with a local garden called Freeman Gardens in my town. Being in TREP$ made me know what being an entrepreneur felt like. Freeman Gardens has bee hives and are helping bees survive. I sold the seeds, but on the side, I also sold bee related stampers. I called the stampers “Adopt a Bee”. All profits from the “Adopt a Bee” went to Freeman Gardens.
I made about $85 and an additional $35 for Freeman Gardens. I thought of the idea by thinking of a problem and a way to solve it, or help it. Bees are a very important to all living things, and they need to be protected. My dad actually came up with the idea of selling seeds. We hand stamped our seed packets with our logo, and filled them with seeds. I also had a poster board and a few signs about my product. I did a little bit of research about bees and what type of seeds bees are attracted to. I actually ended up ordering seeds off a website that specialized in bee seeds.
After the Marketplace ended, I went to Freeman Gardens and met the beekeeper of the gardens. He was doing the Eco fair, and after we talked a bit, I actually wanted to do the Eco Fair with him! So I did the Eco Fair with him! I was really successful and ended up fundraising a lot of money for Freeman Gardens.I started with just doing TREP$ and I ended up selling my product elsewhere also! Overall, TREP$ really helped me learn how to research topics and design a product. It also helped me learn how to be a entrepreneur.I enjoyed doing TREP$ and think it is very fun for students to participate.
