“The Culverhouse REAL program offers students ‘real’ life business and entrepreneurial skills that can and will lead to successful transitions in becoming college and career ready,” said William Powell, a Chamber of Commerce board member, business owner, school guidance counselor and volunteer. “The Culverhouse REAL program offers students the skills needed to build working relationships, networking and the skills needed to see their entrepreneurial dreams come true.”
The REAL Alabama program has left the Tuscaloosa campus before with different entrepreneurial initiatives around the state, but this is the first time they have set up camp-style weekly meetings for four consecutive weeks.
“Our REAL program has partnered with more than 40 school programs during the last several years. The Selma project is the first time we have provided an off-campus, camp-type program,” Tommie Syx, REAL coordinator, said. “That is a new model which we are very excited about. It was Selma’s idea, and they were the first to approach us about this type of event.”
Sheryl Smedley, director of the Selma-Dallas County Chamber of Commerce, said she heard there were no programs available to the youth in the afternoon during summer and saw that as an opportunity. Syx and Smedley worked together to bring the program to Selma, a process that took two years to appropriate funding and to finalize logistics.
“It was an opportunity for us to create this program and have it available in our community to the youth in the afternoon and make them aware of what actually takes place in the business world today as it has to do with owning your own business and getting started in the business world,” Smedley said.
The program will encourage students to make goals and provide them tools to achieve those goals.
“They will actually create and put together a business plan, and it’s not only a plan for business, but it’s a concept they can use for a career path and their personal goals as well,” Smedley said.
Smedley anticipates the possibility of the students having a positive experience and sharing their ideas with friends at school. She hopes the program will double in size so that they can offer two terms next year.
“REAL has been utilized in schools and has been demonstrated in dozens of classroom and workshop presentations in various formats,” Syx said. “I believe that other community groups would see this as a benefit to their youth and to network building between the school and community. It is an excellent environment for youth to see firsthand the relationship between small business and economic development while also focusing on college and careers.”
Powell believes the youth will thrive on the knowledge they receive through REAL.
“I hope to see this program continue here in Selma/Dallas County,” Powell said. “I also look forward to the wonderful and exciting businesses created by the students of the REAL program. I can imagine myself investing in a few of the mock business plans under development by the students of the REAL program.”
Powell said he sees the REAL program as beneficial, not only to the youth, but the entire community.
“I envision this program offered in all of the schools in Selma/Dallas County area,” Powell said. “I believe the REAL program has the ability to offer program participants business skills and opportunities that go beyond the typical classroom environment. In addition, the REAL program can seamlessly link the business community and educators together to prepare program participants to compete in a local and global economy. The REAL Program, the Dallas County Chamber of Commerce, business leaders, plus schools equal success for our students the city and county.”
Syx said he looks forward to the growth of the REAL program in Selma and elsewhere.
“We would like to see the Selma program as an annual event and work with another community to establish a similar event,” Syx said. “For REAL overall, we have linked with internal and external programs to promote entrepreneurship education as a central focus or an added value to other programs. I hope to continue building on this foundation of outreach and community engagement.”
Ann Thompson, director of career technical education of Central High School of Clay County, participated in teacher training from REAL in the 1990s and said the program has been integral for Clay County, a dry county with no four-lane highways or Walmart.
“The concept behind REAL is doing an activity and then causing the students to think about what they just did,” Thompson said.
She learned to set up activities with paper planes or peanut butter and crackers to use in class that taught students what it is like to be an employer, a worker, a buyer and a seller. Students had to evaluate quality control and decide whether to lay employees off, how assembly lines could be more efficient and countless other entrepreneurial skills.
“The activity is fun and mentally challenging, but then after the activity is done think about what just happened,” she said.
Thompson said other programs that started in Clay County schools have made a profit, like monograming in family and consumer science classes, tractor repair, classic culture gardening, video recording and editing, in part because of the training she received from the REAL program.
Thompson worked with 47 churches to prepare a cookbook containing a historical account of Clay County along with southern recipes. Former students have gone on to establish dance studios and florist shops. Thompson attributes these successes to project-based learning that is taught by REAL Alabama.
“The experiential learning cycle is really the scientific method. You state what the problem is, and you reflect on it, and you come up with different solutions,” she said. “Reflect on what just happened and how you can relate that to something else, how you can use that to solve problems and then evaluate how you can improve on it.”
