Rooted is all about the people and the places that make us proud to call our community home.
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“It’s amazing and inspiring to see them grow through this program,” says Sarah White, Marketing and Events Director at the Business Centre Nipissing Parry Sound. White helps facilitate the Summer Company Program which provides students an opportunity to start their own small business venture.
“Over the course of the summer, they get an initial installment of $1,500 and once the program is completed they get an additional $1,500 which helps them run their business. Throughout the summer we provide four workshops that focus on the fundamentals of business. We also do a weekly activity log with them where we go back and forth and see what they have been up to. At the end of the month, they provide a cashflow document to help them track their finances,” says White.
This year, 12 young entrepreneurs from the area ages 15-29 have gotten their businesses off the ground thanks to this program. White says there is a lot of passion behind each of the businesses.
“Whether or not it’s a new passion or it's something they have been doing for a while, these students really put a lot of work into their business ideas. A few of them took up their craft during the pandemic and have gotten really good at what that craft is, and so it’s nice to see them use that time so positively,” says White.
One of those is Abigail Truong who says her business Dream Forge Crafts was built because “Making jewellery has been a passion of mine, it was a good hobby to have when the pandemic started.”
“I sell wire wrap jewellery where I take various stones and artistically wrap them in wire. I do small statues that are also made from wire, and I do larger commissions, which can include any kind of accessories such as sewing, leather craft, and various wood projects. I also do commissions for weddings.”
Truong is going in to grade 11 at West Ferris Secondary School and says, “I had a lot of friends and family that were having weddings and a lot of them wanted to design their own pieces of jewellery and have it be specific to them. I made different items to their specifications such as wire-wrapped flowers, and hairpieces and it allows people more freedom with what they are doing with their jewellery on such an important day. Owning a business has been a great way to share my art and it’s always a great feeling when someone comes along and loves something that you’ve made.”
Another West Ferris Secondary Student Brayden McCready has opened a business based around an art skill he recently developed.
“I do hand-built pottery pieces, mugs, bowls, plates, travel mugs,” says McCready who owns Bent Pottery
“My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and she was recovering during the Covid pandemic and she was bored and ended up buying a pottery wheel and a kiln and as she got better, she started to sell some of the things she made on the side. She figured out it was a good business and so I decided to pick it up and learn as well,” he says.
“It wasn’t too challenging to learn how to do this. You can always beat challenges through hard work if you’re determined and willing to put in the hours as it takes a month from start to finish for one piece. You have to dry it out, kiln fire it, take it out, glaze it, and then kiln fire it again. I usually have 20 pieces going at one time.”
McCready just recently graduated from West Ferris and says he’d like to own his own electrical technician business down the road, but running a summer business is a “good segue to get me to college and pay some bills and learn the ropes of how to run your own business. This has shown me that it is really liberating to make your own hours. It makes you feel better, it makes your overall work better.”
Jadzea Dickieson is currently running a summer business while earning a post-secondary degree. Dickieson is a fourth-year student at Nipissing University, taking Psychology and she also owns and operates A Tinker Faerie
“I am an artist who specializes in handmade goods, from wearable pieces such as jewellery and crocheted tops to art pieces, stickers, bookmarks, home ware such as a coaster, any craft I can get my hands on I try to do,” she says.
“Most of it is inspired by nature and fantasy. I decided to pull that all together to create one central theme where most of my pieces feature up-cycled or foraged items.”
Dickieson says this really is a hobby that has become a side business as mixing her work with her studying helps her accomplish both goals.
“Making the jewellery and the crocheting really keeps me busy. It’s been a lot of work trying to find that balance because I’m taking some online courses right now. But when I put on a lecture or audio version of something I need to read, I work on my crafts while that is happening and by combining the two, I’m able to stay ahead of the work. It also helps me recognize that I need to sometimes take a step back and have some me time so that I don’t get burnt out with the creative process.”
Emma Walton had a creative setup at the recent Summer Company pop-up shop at Northgate Mall. Her business Lens and Pens is a multimedia design business where Walton designs murals, illustrations, photography, and tattoo designs, and at the pop-up shop, she was giving people temporary tattoos to show off her artistic skills.
“I have always loved to draw, I was drawing tattoos on myself when I was really young. I took a photography class in grade 12 this past year and I fell in love with doing that too. Ever since then, I’ve been doing a lot of nature photos and portrait-style photos.”
Walton is heading to Algonquin College in Ottawa for Graphic Design and says she started her business because of the attention her work was getting.
“People would see my art and ask for commissions, and I didn’t really have a space to put my art or a place to be contacted. I saw the Summer Company grant and thought it would be a good place to start to establish my business and to be able to start taking on those commissions,” says Walton.
“It’s been great so far, I’ve been also doing a lot of chalk designs for businesses. I’ve done a lot of commission pieces as well, most of the time those are portraits of people and their pets. You give me the details and what you want the project to look like and I go from there to create a piece.”
Walton adds, “Summer Company has helped me out by assisting with my marketing and building my presence online. It’s also helped me reach out to the community and be at different events to meet potential clients. I was also able to get a computer where I can do digital illustrations.”
Staying in the digital space, Brandon Barker opened his business Chip Smits
“I decided to start this business because my grandparents kept having trouble with their computer and the technicians, they called to fix the problem, didn’t actually fix the problem. So, I took a look at it and thought I could do a better job. I thought this would be a good way to enter the marketplace.”
Barker says he’s going to Guelph University in September to study computer science and, “that combined with the fact that I’m running a computer services company will look really good on a resume down the road. I’ve always worked with computers growing up and consider myself a ‘tech wizard.’ I try to do as much as I can to keep up with the latest updates and the newest technology to figure out how it works and how it is best used.”
The latest technology is something Dylan Bond was searching for when he started his business Flyby Media.
“I operate a microdrone which means there’s a lot less restrictions on where you can fly. I can fly indoors or close to events and people. I really want to try and market to individuals, real estate properties, events and business. I’m just finishing my degree in marketing at Laurentian University, and I thought this would be a cool tool to promote local aspects of North Bay.”
Bond says he was inspired to pursue this thanks to some videos he saw on social media.
“I’ve been following a couple of sports events social media accounts and what they can do with drone footage is amazing. Recently they did a video for The Masters, where they did a tour through the clubhouse and I thought it was awesome to have a cinematic aspect to bring people into the event, and just give them a different perspective. I thought it would be a perfect time to leverage that in this area.”
Bond says it is the immersive content that people are looking for on those social channels.
“I’ve only flown a drone a couple of times prior to this summer, so this is a new experience for me and I’m learning as I go. So far, I’ve done a lot of videos for clients on Manitoulin Island. My main clients are real estate agents who want videos for their listings. But I’m approaching a lot of golf courses in the area to do virtual fly-throughs of every hole, so people can see what the course looks like from the tee to the green and that video can be right on that golf course's website.”
Bond isn’t the only Summer Company entrepreneur who is catering to out-of-market clients. Max Ryan is from Parry Sound and created his business Georgian Bay Merchandising to target those in the Parry Sound area.
“I’m a souvenir company from Parry Sound, specializing in interesting and fashionable souvenir clothing,” says Ryan.
“It’s designed to be wearable and stylish and not a tacky souvenir that you buy and never look at again. I base a lot of the designs around things you would see around town, and I hope to expand into doing designs that reflect North Bay as well.”
Ryan says he saw shops opening up in his area that didn’t offer what he was looking for.
“I thought I could create some designs that people would want to be seen in.”
Working with photoshop and other art design apps, Ryan, a grade 11 student at Parry Sound High School says, “I did some photography and Photoshop before this, but I’ve always been really good at developing my skills on new software fairly quickly. There were some tricky designs but I’m happy with how they turned out.”
He added, “It’s awesome owning my own business. It’s stressful getting everything done but pretty fun to run my own business. I’m also learning how to improve my skills as a salesperson.”
Apollo Schafer is hoping that walking around town and selling cotton candy and snow cones becomes an easy sell. The grade 12 Chippewa Secondary Student runs a mobile cart business called Sugary Sweets.
“There isn’t a big backstory behind it. My mother and I were sitting on the couch and just thinking of different snacks that people could be offered around town that might be different and we landed on cotton candy. We thought ‘Well if you’re selling cotton candy, you might as well expand’ and so that’s where the idea to make snow cones came in. We thought the best way to sell it was to put it all on a cart so that I could be mobile and move around North Bay."
So far Schafer says they have done vendor events and have a permit to be at Lee Park, and down by the waterfront.
“I started my business before I found out about Summer Company and the program became an extra motivator to keep me going and help me spread the word about the business,” says Schafer.
“It’s exciting to be able to have a business before being done school. I’ve actually done a few events at school, and it’s great because my teachers have been supportive of what I’m doing. I’m hoping to be able to use the money I make off of this to be able to pay for college. I want to go to school to pursue law – so totally unrelated to having a cotton candy mobile business.”
Natalie Ready was also motivated by Summer Company to start her business Natalie’s Art Pieces.
“I didn’t think I could do this full-time especially while still in school, but once I saw the Summer Company program, I thought for sure it was something I could do for the summer,” says Ready.
“This was a Covid creation, I wanted to make people happy with my art. I do custom pet portraits in pencil and graphite, and I also do greeting cards and prints. Art has been my passion since I was a kid. I didn’t think it would take me to where I am now, but here we are.”
Ready says doing this as s a business started because of a message on Facebook.
“I posted a piece of my work on Facebook and one of my friends asked if I charged for them. I said I didn’t but if you’re interested I could. So, she bought that piece, and she started spreading the word, and more people got interested as well.”
Ready adds, “I love animals, I’ve ridden horses since I was a kid and I have cats at home, so I love drawing animals and I know other people love pieces of art of their animals and I figured that would be the route I would go down. A lot of times the commissions I do are memorial pieces for their pets that have passed. I always felt that if I could give them something that would help them keep that pet with them longer then that’s what I want to do.”
White says the intake for Summer Company starts in January for next summer's program.
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