Four Days, 850 miles, and a lot of smiles! This was the week that Kylie Stupka and I shared. Kylie and I traveled across the state to our four Regional Dreams to Dividends ceremonies and were able to see many of our YE students receive scholarships and venture capital awards; along with celebrating our wonderful volunteers, teachers, community supporters and most importantly our students!
Dreams to Dividends is also a chance for us to see some of our students showcase their business plans via a “showcase trade-show.” I heard so many comments from attendees that our students had wonderful plans and that they were impressed by our students’ ability to speak confidently and passionately about their plans.
Eric Hren spoke at our Kansas City Regional Dreams to Dividends on behalf of the Cerner Corporation and their sponsorship of our Kansas City Metro Business Plan Competition. He shared the sentiment he’s often heard that this generation of students is lacking passion and is on the path to fail. However, after speaking with our attending students, he stated that if the rest of this generation of students were like our YE students, who inspired him with passion and enthusiasm, then society would be absolutely wrong about their path to failure!
One of the highlights of each evening was finding out which students would be moving on to The Finals. You could sense the anticipation in the room on all four nights, and it was exciting to watch the reactions from students, parents and teachers to see how proud and excited they were to be moving on in the competition.
Patty Brown from The Rotary Club of Wichita, who sponsored the Wichita area Business Plan Competition, mentioned how impressed Rotarian judges were with this year’s student business plans and presentations. It made me thankful that I wasn’t one of the judges faced with the difficulty of choosing the winners this year!
At the Southwest Regional Dreams to Dividends, event sponsor Mike Weber of Weber Refrigeration and Heating challenged our students to find a need to service in order to be successful. I know that our students are up for this challenge!
We are extremely grateful, as we certainly could not have awarded $27,200 in venture capital funding without the support of the above sponsors and others, or the $102,500 in higher education scholarships without our many scholarship partners:
· Dodge City Community College
· Ellis Foundation
· Emporia State University
· Garden City Community College
· H&R Block
· Newman University
· Meritrust Credit Union
· Shelter Insurance
· W. Frank Barton School of Business and Center for Entrepreneurship at Wichita State University
· Washburn University
· Wichita Area Technical College
I know that our entire staff is so proud of all of our students, not just those who were awarded scholarships or Venture Capital but all of our students for completing the YE year. We can’t wait to see where the road ahead is going to lead them! Congratulations to all of our students on a great year!
Chelsey Karlin
YE Program Coordinator
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