Children’s Business Fair
Naperville Central High School rising sophomore Athena Chen was inspired to start a Children’s Business Fair right here in Naperville.
“I participated in a children’s business fair in Oak Park when I was 12, so that was like two years ago. Oak Park is a suburb about 40 minutes away and I was wondering, I want to participate in one in Naperville,” said Chen. “I searched it up, there wasn’t one yet so I was like, why not host one myself? It’s a one-day entrepreneurship event for kids ages five to 14 to showcase their own business and sell their products and services.”
Over 50 young vendors showcased their work at the stations set up in the parking lot of Naperville Central High School.
“My business is resin keychains and I also have earrings and rings,” said 12-year-old vendor Hadley. “And the resin keychains are made from resin which is a substance like plastic but it’s a little bit different. But it won’t break so it’s like plastic in that way.”
“We took some paint and then we started coloring the whole thing with different type of color paint. We double coated it,” said 10-year-old Arnav about one of his paintings.
Showcasing What Kids Can Do
Chen hopes the event showcased how much kids can do.
“The goal is for kids to experience entrepreneurship in a very hands-on way because by running their own small business they’re going to learn skills like time management and customer service that they wouldn’t learn in any other way at such a young age,” said Chen. “One of our main goals with this is to let kids flourish on their own because a lot of times adults think that kids can’t do as much as they expect just because they’re so young. I want the community to leave feeling inspired and confident in our next generation of business leaders.”
The plan is to make the Naperville Children’s Business Fair an annual event.
Naperville News 17’s Aysha Ashley Househ reports.
