My Entrepreneurship Story
I always had an interest in business and entrepreneurship
but my entrepreneurship story truly began with my service project in my junior
year of high school. My friend Jorge and I are both Cuban so we tried to
organize a service project that would give something desperately needed in
Cuban cities to the residents: shoes. So we brainstormed and we came up with
the idea to put flyers up in both our high school and our former middle school
asking people to donate new and slightly used pairs of shoes. We ran the flyers
for about 2 weeks and were able to collect over 800 pairs of shoes to donate to
Cuba. We then decided that we would send them to the town of Puerto Padre
because Jorge still had family there. We decided to name our project “Calzando
a Puerto Padre” which roughly translates to giving shoes to Puerto Padre. After
such a great success our first year, we repeated the project senior year and we
received an additional 700 pairs to donate to Puerto Padre. This was my first
true taste of entrepreneurship and I have loved it ever since.
My reason for enrolling in ENT 3003 had a lot to do with my
service project in high school. I really enjoyed the process of starting a
project from scratch and having it turn into something that helped change the
lives of so many Cubans that needed help. After my project I signed up for a
class in high school that was also named Principles of Entrepreneurship
coincidentally. In that class I continued to learn about entrepreneurship and
about social entrepreneurship. I hope to get a similar experience out of this
class. I hope to be able to acquire the skills to make projects like my one in
high school but on a larger scale. I also hope to look for something that will
make me look at the world differently; so far with the Bug List this class has
just done that. I look forward to this class continuing to forcing me to look
at the world differently.
Below are images of me collecting the donated shoes
Hello!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your post because I am also Cuban and appreciate the project you led. Its amazing that two people could go out on a mission and collect over 700 pairs of shoes in back to back years. The club I participated in during high school did similar projects which donated to other Hispanic countries, such as Chile. The difference was that we would primarily donate school supplies. It'd be really interesting to see your project at the university level; just imagine how many pairs of shoes people would donate!
Hi!
ReplyDeleteIt is so amazing how much you were able to donate to Cuba. I was in student council in high school and we always tried to come up with good community service projects that would really help others. I love that you guys helped out on an international level. I really liked in your reflection that you mentioned that you hope this class helps you look at the world differently. I, too, hope to be able to view the world with a different perspective because it is so important in understanding others and the world around us.