Chambana Sun

The Monticello city council heard from some of their youngest entrepreneurs.

“On the first, I think it was within three days, we learned that we were going to be completing a badge business,” Drew Sheppard, a student of Sangamon Valley CEO, said during the meeting. “So we were told your goal is to raise money to be able to buy our name badges that you see us with, so that we can kind of just be identified more as a team as we go into different businesses. But we weren't told how to do it. It was kind of our first just getting thrown into the mix to figure it out. We had watched some informational videos from Midland Institute, which is the overarching company that runs CEO about sponsorships, and so we knew we needed to go out from the community ask different businesses that we knew, whether as people we did know for sponsorships so that we didn't have our badges. So some of these businesses in the community that end up helping us out and give us sponsorships were [HW, Kelly's accounting, State Bank of Monticello, and then the city of Monticello]. And so with their support and help are able to get these badges to identify ourselves. And then we also got class t-shirts which support sponsors on the back. So that was kind of our way of just getting our first business experience in the mix and helped us learn a lot. And we would not have been able to do it without a lot of local community businesses. So we are thankful for that.”

The council uploaded a livestream of its public meeting to the city’s YouTube channel.

At their January 23rd council meeting, city officials from Monticello welcomed the CEO class from Sangamon Valley. The CEO program is a very unique business course that is a two-year program involving multiple local high schools and is very intensive. The students meet with local businesses and business owners, work with their mentors throughout the program, and operate on a mostly student-led basis, working just with a facilitator for logistics. They don’t meet in classrooms, instead rotating their meeting place with different organizations around them in order to gain real-life experience.

The council also discussed an ordinance regarding the city's water production and distribution services.

The students work in some of the businesses they learn from, but they also learn from running their own businesses. One of the students explained that she had started a nonprofit when she was twelve and was struggling to grow it because she didn’t have anyone backing her. When she joined the CEO program, she was able to go into meetings not just with the extra education and skills from the program, but a funding partner and backing agency to prove her ability to run her organization to potential partners. Some of the other individual businesses include lawn care and tree trimming, and basketball camps for kids.

The council will meet again at 7 p.m. on Tuesday at 210 North Hamilton Street.

The students shared a few other stories about projects and lessons they have learned through the program, saying that they feel they have gained a lot of confidence alongside more tangible business skills. They also see improvements in their communication skills and ability to present or talk in front of a crowd. The board thanked the students for their presentation and was very impressed with their skills and accomplishments. They were eager to continue supporting the program.