Youth show off their entrepreneurial skills at Ottawa Children’s Business Fair

Chloe Carmona turned a Christmas gift into a moneymaking idea.

Carmona received a resin kit and made all sorts of fun items with it, she said. Then one of her teachers told her about the Ottawa Children’s Business Fair and suggested she try her hobby as a business.

Saturday at Washington Square for the inaugural Ottawa Children’s Business Fair sponsored by Prairie Fox Books, Carmona said the sales have been good.

“I was amazed at how much I can make with it,” Carmona said about the number of items she can create with her resin kit.

Carmona was one of 19 other children businesses Saturday, selling their own products, most of them homemade, underneath tents set up across the park. The event provided children first through 12th grades the opportunity to learn about business. They designed their own brand, marketed their products and put it out to the community Saturday, also earning profits from their sales.

Dixie Smick, 12, of Ottawa, said she heard about the business fair at school. She had read about God’s eyes, which are made from taking yarn and wrapping it around a wooden cross, and decided she wanted to make them, along with other jewelry and tie dyes.

She said she learned how to price her products based on how much time she spent with each one. The tie dye shirts involve an overnight process and the God’s eyes can be made in 5 to 10 minutes, and some of the jewelry was more time consuming.

Raegon Davis, of Marseilles, who created handmade bracelets and charms, said figuring out how many beads and how many items go into each product was a big part of her figuring out the cost. Her mom suggested she participate in the business fair.

“I was making bracelets for a project at school,” she said.

Cayla Blood, 11, of Ottawa, and Ceci Reynolds, 12, of Utica, received an award for The Ceci and Cayla Shop, which featured homemade baked goods, including double chunk brownies, which were sold out quickly.

The duo said they both love to bake cookies, so the idea came naturally. They said they are excited to spend some of the profits on fun items.

Other businesses on display included How Big Can You Dream, Sawyer Clay Creations, Peanut Butter and Jillys Art Stuff, Crafty Kitty, Amen Acres, Grayson’s Letter Merch, Color Me Collins, Star Designs, The Crafter’s Cave and Designs by D.

The first children’s business fair coincided with the end-of-summer party sponsored by Prairie Fox Books, featuring face painting, games, activities with Rapunzel and free backpacks with free children’s books.