The Legacy Impact Community Resource Center in Frayser is hosting its third Youth in Business workshop Saturday, July 9.

The workshop, at 2285 Frayser Blvd., helps youth become entrepreneurs, learn about business ethics, and create financial opportunities for themselves and their families. They will choose from workshops in hair braiding, T-shirt design and screen printing, event planning, social media content creation, coding, sewing and bonnet making. 

Youth in Business Workshop gives students a look inside entrepreneurship

Youth aged 11 through 19 can participate. The workshop is free and runs from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Each specialty will feature a lecture and a hands-on portion. To register, visit legacyimpactcrc.org.

Legacy Impact Community Resource Center is a partnership between Legacy of Legends Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit centered on addressing adverse childhood experiences, and Impact Church, where Legacy of Legends founder Charlie Caswell serves as the outreach pastor. The building will house a performing arts center, gallery, after school program, job training center, small business incubator and athletic center. Its goal is to create a safe and nurturing space for neighborhood youth. 

Saturday’s workshop will be the third in a series taking place the third Saturday of each month. So far, the program has served 85 youth. Since it began, Nike granted the group $75,000 to continue the work of the Youth in Business workshops.

The goal, project manager Tiara Caswell said, is that by December, youth who have participated in a majority of the workshops will receive certificates of completion and support from the community resource center in the form of microloans for marketing, help with their business structure and the continued support of becoming a customer. After equipping children in the neighborhood with the tools to start a business, the community resource center, which will also double as an event hall, can use services from the youth’s businesses, such as screen printing and event decor.

Frayser center to make an ‘impact’

Participating businesses include Heal the Hood Foundation, a nonprofit based in Hickory Hill, which will teach participants how to make beats and how to read and write music to create their own songs. Another business, the H.E.A.T. Collection by LEX, will teach students how to do nails. All business owners leading the workshops are volunteers.

It was Tiara Caswell’s vision to equip the youth with skills, as she benefited from having her own business at 14 years old. Her business, Gold Mind Beauty Bar, started with her braiding hair. Now, she owns an online beauty supply store and is a licensed hairstylist. Soon, she said, customers will be able to buy beauty supplies on demand from her website. 

She wants to show the youth how to envision an idea and bring it to fruition and that they do not have to leave their community to make decent wages.