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Students Build a Business, Transform Detroit Blight into Beauty

Students Build a Business, Transform Detroit Blight into Beauty
These students created a business that turned a profit while helping beautify their Detroit, Michigan neighborhood.

Students in Detroit, Michigan defied stereotypes to find beauty in the city's blight and even build a business around it.

The teens, in Southeastern High School's Entrepreneurship Class came up with a plan to make and sell wreaths while cleaning up their neighborhoods.

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They stripped overgrowth from fences and vacant lots and fashioned the vines and other plants into decorative wreaths.

Working with the Hantz Foundation — committed to enhancing the lives of Detroit's people "one square mile at a time," the students were able to attract the attention of Carhartt, an international clothing brand, which offered to sell the wreaths in its flagship store.

Students who thought the project would be boring were surprised at the excitement of building and running their own business. Those who thought they'd be wasting their time were amazed at how quickly their complete inventory sold out.

All learned to believe in themselves as capable business people.

"People say Detroit is run-down and dirty, but this is a project that's cleaning up [the city] and starting a business," Mi'Cole Owens, one of the students, said. "It shows that teenagers from Detroit do have business skills and know how to keep their own city clean."

The class is already working on ideas for their next business venture.

(WATCH the video from the Hantz Foundation below)

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