Entrepreneurship

Thank you for supporting the Entrepreneurship program at John Carroll University.

John Carroll University students strive to be men and women for and with others, through experiential learning opportunities. Many Cleveland residents face a myriad of problems created by a history of poverty. Funds raised from today's Day of Giving will go to support our JCU Neighborhood Project.

The JCU Neighborhood Project is an opportunity to focus the time and talents of JCU students, faculty, and staff in collaboration with residents and business owners in the Buckeye/Shaker/Woodland Hills neighborhoods (collectively known as "Greater Buckeye") to apply an entrepreneurial spirit to address the problems preventing those residents and business owners from thriving.

To date, the JCU entrepreneurship program has invested nearly $100,000 into the following projects in collaboration with Greater Buckeye residents and business owners:

• Steps to Equity (a geographic information system (GIS) walkability assessment)
• The Village Activity Book, a 16-page coloring book that tells the history of the Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood while inviting children to share their vision of the future of the neighborhood
• Verizon Innovative Learning Summer Day Camp. With support from the Verizon Foundation, our team hosted the Verizon Innovative Learning Summer Camp, which is a free 3-week STEM enrichment day camp open to students in grades 6-8.
• Cleveland Entrepreneurship and Adversity Program (CEAP). This is an 11-month program to facilitate business growth among Cleveland’s lowest income neighborhoods. Participants are progressing through an integrated approach to community empowerment that involves training, mentoring, and microcredit opportunities.
• A 10-week summer pop-up physical fitness event series in collaboration with Recess Cleveland

We need funding to integrate Greater Buckeye businesses and entrepreneurs into every entrepreneurship course at JCU, to launch a micro-credit fund, and to develop and implement the following programming for youth:

• Social Change Begins With You. Middle & high school students explore their purpose and place in the world through music, design, & video storytelling principles. They also learn about entrepreneurship, marketing/branding, business/economic/financial basics
• Youth Incubator (From Hood Economics to Entrepreneurship). Work with JCU alum JCU students & alum entrepreneurs mentor neighborhood youth who are living on the darker side of entrepreneurship (dealing drugs, robbery, prostitution, etc.) to shift skills to a more productive path that still generates revenue
• Arts Entrepreneurship Bootcamp. 10-15 young artists use award-winning entrepreneurship curriculum to learn to turn their artistic talent into a career path / side hustle.
• Creative Writing for Social Change. JCU students work with middle school & high school students on creative writing & presenting/sharing/publishing their work to spread inspiration for social change; only cost is student workers & food & beverage
• I See Voices. Up to 20 students; youth leadership and arts & technology exposure program (social engagement | photography |visual design | and AR/VR program curriculum and materials, that will all culminate into a final group project)

What if JCU students and neighborhood residents taught each other to fish?