These Kids Mean Business

First children’s business fair attracts 15 vendors

No one thinks running a business is child’s play, but it seems quite a few kids in the Highlands have a flair for it.  

The Children’s Business Fair held Aug. 17 on the lawn of St Mary’s Episcopal Church in Cold Spring featured 15 fledgling businesses operated by young entrepreneurs between the ages of 6 and 14.

Garrison resident Julie Arora organized the fair, modeling it after the Houston-based Acton Academy, which began children’s business fairs in 2019 and offers them across the U.S. and in many parts of the world.  

“Their model is based on the three seeds of entrepreneurship: Kids come up with an idea, make it with their own hands and sell it to people who are strangers,” Arora said. 

Creativity and business savvy were evident on Saturday, along with a wide range of products. 

Molly and Aiden Campbell, ages 9 and 7, live in Kent and operate Campbell’s Creations. “We kind of thought of the name together,” Molly said. The siblings sell handmade greeting cards, dog cookies and pom-poms. 

They both create the artwork for the greeting cards. “Half the cards are mine and half are my sister’s,” Aiden said. Asked how he gets an idea for a card, he said: “It just comes up in my head!”

Molly said they try to match a funny phrase with a picture in a way that makes sense. “Like Aiden’s Crabby Birthday card has a drawing of a crab,” she said.

Asked what is hardest about the business, Aiden said it’s probably making change for customers. “Sometimes I use a calculator if the math is too hard,” he said.

The cards are Molly’s favorite aspect of the business. “I like painting them and often when people see there’s a deal, they get more than one,” she said. The children brought dog cookies to sell “because lots of people in Cold Spring have dogs.”

Cyan Rivers, 10, who lives in Beacon, operates Cyan’s Camp Coffee, a business she started when her family began RV camping across the country during the pandemic. She has sold coffee at campgrounds in 42 states, as well as Canada. 

“When we set up camp, we usually get the coffee from the local roaster,” she said. “Here, we got it from Catskill Roasters,” who, along with Big Mouth Coffee in Beacon, sponsored her setup in Cold Spring.

“I want to expand because when I grow up, I want to have my own coffee shop,” Cyan said. She charges $3 for hot coffee and $4 for cold brew. 

Jayden Mansfield of Garrison, 8, operates Chai Kid out of his family’s kitchen, offering Rice Krispies squares, muffins and chai (his biggest seller).

“My grandmother helped me with the chai, but my mother helped me with the other stuff,” he said.

Jayden had considered adding blackberry and raspberry jam to his product line but changed his mind after making one batch. “I realized the ingredients were too expensive,” he said. 

Seneca Angel, 12, of Garrison, runs Seneca’s Freshly Cut Flowers. “I do everything,” she said, describing how she researched, ordered and planted the seeds for 22 types of flowers. “The hardest part was probably watering; I had to water them a lot!” she said. “And there’s a lot of weeding.”

She has changed her pricing along the way. “I used to sell bouquets for $15 and large bunches for $25,” she said. “But I changed them all to $15; it was more reasonable.”

She is not looking to be a florist. “It’s more of an after-school thing, a hobby,” she said.  “I’ve also been doing dance since I was 3.”

Amara Janetta’s business is Amara’s Confections, which produces cookies and cake pops for $2 to $3 each. Her biggest challenge has been the amount of time spent baking. “It’s a lot of hours to make enough,” she said. “My Rocky Mountain cookie hasn’t been selling but my cake pops are; I only have two left.”

The entrepreneurs each had support from their families, and it seems adults and kids got to know each other better in the process.

“I’ve learned she can be pretty impatient, wanting immediate results, not really planning properly and then getting upset,” said Shala Janetta, Amara’s mother. “But she’s also learned to be pretty independent, how to sell her own stuff and talk about it, and that is great.”

Amara was equally balanced in assessing her mom’s role in the fledgling business. “She was crazy at times!” she said, adding that her mom would often question her methods by saying: “That’s so wrong; what are you doing?”

But she admitted her mom “did help with stuff,” including researching the best methods for making cake pops, suggesting they had to be refrigerated so that they wouldn’t fall off the stick.  

Arora, the event organizer, said she was surprised by how the young business operators reacted when foot traffic was slow. “They started hustling, standing on the street corner waving people in, which is an exciting business experience, too,” she said. “They felt like they were part of creating something. It wasn’t just a fair that was set up for them; they were making it happen.”

She estimates 200 people attended. Tutto Pizza and the Cozy Corner Cafe provided lunch for the vendors while the Pig Hill Inn and Split Rock Books made financial contributions. Arora is planning a second fair for Oct. 20. Children and teens can sign up at bit.ly/business-fair-CS.