Program to teach business skills
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By Keith Strange, The Mount Airy News, N.C.
Jan. 26--DOBSON -- A $100,000 grant is set to help spur entrepreneurial development in the region, community, education and business leaders learned yesterday.
The new regional initiative was announced during a kickoff celebration at Surry Community College.
The grant was awarded last year by the Golden LEAF Foundation to help fund NCREAL (Rural Entrepreneurship through Action Learning) to help develop a spirit of small business creation in the region. The foundation is funded through monies paid to the state by cigarette companies as a result of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with the tobacco industry.
The goal of the program is to help people in small rural communities across North Carolina learn how to develop a viable business through hands-on programs and a network of knowledgeable support.
Arlene Childers, associate director of North Carolina REAL, said the program offers teacher training, small business development support programs and events for both students and adults designed to help develop an entrepreneurial mindset among participants.
But it's not just members of the region's business community that are being targeted. Organizers say the program also focuses on young people to help spark an entrepreneurial spirit that will continue to benefit the region as they get older.
The program will be integrated into the public school systems in Surry and Yadkin counties as well as the region's community colleges, school leaders said.
NCREAL administrators said the grant is initially set to expire in December, but it could be expanded for additional years if the program proves successful.
"They've let us know that if we can demonstrate positive results it could be renewed for another year," Malinda Todd, associate director of North Carolina REAL Enterprises, said yesterday.
Dr. David Shockley, president of Surry Community College, said his experience with the program has proven that it works.
"I've literally seen children do amazing things and start believing in themselves," he said. "I've seen schools that were under-performing embrace this program and a year or so later I was amazed to see the transformation and see kids begin to believe in themselves."