We are seeking business professionals who are willing to share their expertise and stories with our youth. In 2013, we will engage over 100 youth in business and entrepreneurship education programs. The key to making these programs successful is having business leaders visit with our youth and share their real-world expertise and stories. Becoming a “storyteller” in our business and entrepreneurship program takes just 1 hour and makes a real impact in the lives of youth.

We are currently recruiting “storytellers” for three business and entrepreneurship programs:

Biz World is an entrepreneurship program for middle school students, which provides youth with the opportunity to start and run their own friendship bracelet business. The program introduces them to the entrepreneurial cycle- design, manufacturing, marketing and sales- through a hands-on, experiential curriculum. We are seeking volunteers to participate in the role of “Storytellers” by presenting a narrative of their professional experience while assisting our young people in creating their successful friendship making businesses!

Youth Entrepreneurship Summer (YES!) Camp is an exciting summer program that inspires high school students to imagine their career futures and develop plans to get there. The program is based on several recent studies that show that such education is highly effective in improving academic and career outcomes for low-income youth.  We are seeking professionals who will serve as “storytellers” for this program as well, sharing stories about their work, their education, and their career path that will expose our youth to stories of real-life success and assist them as they navigate the creation of their own business.

Speed Networking is a workshop where our youth meet business leaders in intimate settings and ask them questions about their careers. In this program, we hope to help our youth foster the communication skills essential to success in the work place by bringing business professionals in for mini-networking sessions .

For all programs, we estimate the time commitment to be 1 hour of direct service plus some brief preparation/reading in advance of your visit. However, we welcome our volunteers to become more involved if they would like!

If you or someone you know is interested in participating in our Youth Entrepreneurship Programming, please contact Volunteer and Outreach Coordinator, Ellen Muench at 847-866-1200 Ext 221 or via e-mail at ellen.muench@youevanston.org.