The North Iowa Area Community College (NIACC) John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center conducted an Entrepreneur for a Day program (E4D^®) at the Richard O. Jacobson Elementary School on March 9 in Belmond and at NIACC on March 24 for the Belmond-Klemme 5^th grade students.  Over 40 students participated in the two-session program sponsored by Wright County Economic Development.

The Entrepreneur for a Day (E4D^®)program is dedicated to teaching 5^th grade students the fundamental principles of entrepreneurship and how to start a business.  Students learn the distinct differences between becoming an entrepreneur and being an employee.  One of the goals of the program is to get kids thinking about being a job creator versus a job taker. The program encourages them to view entrepreneurship as a viable career pathway and understand that passions can become vocations. 

During this two session program, participants experience business planning, financial literacy, marketing concepts, work place concepts, social responsibility and team-building skills. This marks the first step in getting entrepreneurship education into the schools.  During the first day, trained facilitators visit the students’ classroom and get them excited about the program by introducing terms and concepts of entrepreneurship.  The second day, students are invited to visit the NIACC campus where they choose a product, borrow money from a bank, buy resources they will need, make the product, then sell the product and determine if they made a profit.  The visit concludes with a tour of NIACC which offers students a sense of campus life, diversity and validates college.  Many of these students may be the first generation in their families to attend college, and the campus presence enables the students to make a post-secondary connection.

The John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center is located on the North Iowa Area Community College campus in Mason City and provides college level courses and degree programs in entrepreneurship, as well as comprehensive consulting services for business start-ups, existing industries and owner transitions in the North Iowa region.  

For more information regarding the Entrepreneur for a Day program, please contact Kelley O’Rourke at the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center at 641-422-4234 or kelley.orourke@niacc.edu.

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