A group of young local entrepreneurs got some props for its work last week after attending the Junior Achievement Awards in Regina and grabbing the Product Design Award for its home made business.
Splended, an ice cream truck created by Estevan Comprehensive School’s Entrepreneurship 30 class received the award based on the originality of its product and lessons students learned while bringing the business to fruition.
Josh LeBlanc, teacher for Entrepreneurship 30, said ECS has always been lucky in having students with great innovative attitudes and abilities.
“The kids work hard and every year we see some type of success at the Junior Achievement Awards; we didn’t win the big one this year, but that’s okay,” he said.
“The fact that they still have some type of success to celebrate is great and every year the kids we have in this class, they work hard, they deserve to be recognized and that’s what happened so we’re happy about that.”
The award ceremony took place on June 15 where roughly 30 ECS students attended to celebrate everything Junior Achievement related, LeBlanc said.
All southern Saskatchewan schools that take part in the Junior Achievement program attend and honours are given in various categories, as well as an induction of three individuals into the Achievement Business Hall of Fame.
“So it’s a really cool event for the kids to celebrate the successes that they had and the work they did throughout the year,” LeBlanc added.
“And it’s also pretty cool for them because they get to see three very successful entrepreneurs be inducted into a plaza of honour for their hard work and (they) see what is needed to do to succeed in business.”
He pointed out his students learned a lot during the creation of Splended, figuring out how to do everything from negotiation lease amounts to wiring and plumbing a food truck, which was good because LeBlanc himself isn’t of much help in some of those regards, he joked.
“This was a business that required a lot of extra hours for them to put in, I would say these kids have put in close to an extra 100 to 150 hours on top of the class time they were required to,” he said.
“Thank you to the community for coming out and supporting these kids every year."
According to LeBlanc, Splended will be shutting its door on June 22 so anyone with a craving for its ice cream based products should move quickly while supplies last.
