Skip to content

Sacred Heart students learning about entrepreneurship

The Grade 7 English class at Sacred Heart School/École SacréCoeur has been learning about the importance of entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship pic
Students from Sacred Heart School/École SacréCoeur sampled food as part of their food truck entrepreneurship project. Photo submitted

The Grade 7 English class at Sacred Heart School/École SacréCoeur has been learning about the importance of entrepreneurship.

Students will use a 3D printer to create miniature food trucks as part of the program, and they will come up with a menu with food items on it. At the end of the unit, they will invite their fellow students and parents to come to their class, so that people can place an order from the menu, although they won’t be making things to order.

“They’re really into it, and they’re having a lot of fun,” said Megan Vanstone, the Grade 7 English teacher at Sacred Heart.

Students have received their food safety certification, and they have spent time learning about food preparation at the Estevan Comprehensive School. They will go grocery shopping in a couple of weeks so that they know the cost of the food they are serving, and accountants from MNP will come in to mentor the students and build a pricing model.

Once it’s all finished, the students will be able to calculate how much money they would have made had they actually been selling food, which is a big part of the project, Vanstone said.

As part of the program, students have taken on the different roles associated with a successful business, ranging from marketing to budgeting to menu planning.

“We started in the middle of September, and we’ll be done in about three weeks,” Vanstone told Lifestyles.

The day of the food truck festival, they might have some sample-sized portions of the food for people to try.

“They’ll have a big display board with their menu and their marketing strategy that will be on there, along with their little truck, and they’ll be able to explain their business to everybody that pops in.”

Students also talked to local restaurants, and three of them – Boston Pizza, Eddie Webster’s and Black Beard’s Family Restaurant – sent in some samples of their food. The students savoured the dishes and will write online reviews for them.

The Rolling Stove food truck company has offered to bring its truck for the children to tour, so they can see what would be included if they had an actual food truck.

Vanstone noted that Josh LeBlanc, the instructor of the entrepreneurship 30 class at the Estevan Comprehensive School, has been a big role model for her, because of the success of his program. She believes it’s important for students to learn some of the skills associated with owning a business at an early age.

“I think the part that I’ve been most impressed with is how even in the down market in Estevan, how local businesses have stepped up to help us and to encourage the kids and show them that there’s so much life here left in Estevan in our local businesses,” she said. “I’ve just been so impressed and I’m so touched with the way we’ve been supported in the community with the different mentors and experts that we’ve reached out to.”