BUILD’s January 2009 Newsletter

BUILD’s January 2009 Newsletter
2008 Holiday Sales Bazaar


Each year the incubator students at both the Peninsula and Oakland sites refine their marketing, manufacturing and business communication skills for one of the year’s most exciting events. The Holiday Sales Bazaar usually takes place in the month of December when family and friends are looking to purchase gifts for the holidays.

Because of the recent change in economy, students were prepared for the possibility that guests may not be able to spend tremendous amounts of money on products. Despite a glum financial outlook, juniors and sophomores, for whom this was their first selling opportunity, spent months preparing their businesses for this special event. Each team was motivated by the opportunity to showcase their team’s business to family, friends and the community.

The 2008 Peninsula Holiday Sales Bazaar was a success with one of our E2 teams, Eco Scarves, bringing in over $730 of sales revenue. Eco Scarves is a company from Woodside High School that produces eco-friendly fashion scarves, and they placed 3rd at the 2008 Business Plan Competition.


The Sales Bazaar was attended by over 200 guests. All 20 incubator teams were represented and their hard work was celebrated with an evening of live music, dance performances and raffle drawings. The evening would not have been complete without reflections from our seniors who all announced the colleges they have applied to and where they hope to attend.

This event is important for the students not only because they are able to make money for their businesses, but also because they get to network with family members and peers from their communities. The Holiday Sales Bazaar is a milestone for the BUILD students, and through this experience we hope that students learn the power they have to effect change around them.
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2008 Local College Trip

BUILD Oakland students touring the UC-Davis campus
An often pivotal event in a BUILD student’s experience is their very first college tour. The occasion to see a real college campus and be introduced to the culture of higher education is an extremely inspiring opportunity. This year, BUILD Oakland took a record number 67 students on an overnight adventure to three different local college campuses. These schools included the University of the Pacific, Sacramento State University, and UC Davis.

BUILD’s goal for the college tours is to introduce the students to a wide array of college/university experiences. The Academic Program Managers make every effort to ensure the students get a good feel for schools in the Cal State and UC systems as well as a private school, as each offers a unique learning and social environment that may address the exceptional and wonderful personalities of our young entrepreneurs.


The weekend started at the University of the Pacific where BUILD students walked around the smaller campus, ate lunch at the school’s dining facilities and received an admissions presentation. The next stop was Sacramento, where the Admissions office led BUILD students on a guided tour of the campus and then a Sacramento State student group fielded some important college culture questions from our students. The final stop was UC Davis where the Black Campus Ministries set up both a guided tour by current students as well as a phenomenal student panel that included a recent graduate from McClymonds High School in Oakland, CA.

This experience as a whole had an overwhelmingly positive reception by the BUILD students. The excitement will last through the Spring when our students will explore the San Diego area colleges and universities over Spring Break, for a total of five days, in hopes of further inciting our students’ passion to pursue higher education.
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First Semester in DC

Students studying at Maya Angelou Public Charter High School
The first year of life is filled with moments of joy, fear, and lots of growth and the same could be said about BUILD Metro DC! We have had some unique and challenging moments this first year in DC, but continue to press on, work hard, learn, and have fun as we ensure that the students we support understand and benefit from what we have to offer.

Despite the normal and some not-so-normal complaints of teenagers, BUILD Metro DC students get more and more engaged with each class session and they are quick in comprehending concepts. In the upcoming weeks, we will be shepherding students through the business-team formation process and launching into writing their actual business plans.

The relationship between mentors and students is getting stronger as they continue to work together. A marketing project in which students and mentors collaborated to create a new campaign for a popular candy bar was a hit – groups were so engaged that is was difficult to tell them class was over!

We can’t help but be proud of Metro DC's growth, and we will continue to do well. Why? We have wonderful teachers who are committed to BUILD’s success and we have strong support from our partner schools, the entire BUILD team and our board members. We also have wonderful interns from George Washington University who make our staff of three feel like much more. As our students push toward the inaugural Business Plan Competition, we look forward to establishing BUILD as a truly impactful and important part of the Metro DC community!

Come Celebrate with BUILD Metro DC on February 4, 2008

On February 4th, BUILD Metro DC will be celebrating BUILD’s national expansion into Washington, DC. The event, a cocktail reception, will be held at HR-57, a jazz club dedicated to the preservation of jazz and the blues. Suzanne McKechnie Klahr, CEO & Founder of BUILD, is excited to welcome BUILD’s community of Washington area supporters to the event and looks forward to both reflecting on BUILD Metro DC’s successes during its inaugural year and looking forward as we continue to expand in our Nation’s Capitol.

Tickets for the event are $60 per person and all proceeds will go toward BUILD Metro DC. In addition to food, music and friends, we will be raffling off some exciting items for a few lucky winners to take home. To register for this event, please contact BUILD Metro DC Development Manager Rachel Jarvis at rjarvis@build.org or 202.393.7087. We look forward to seeing you there!


A Big Thank You to...


We would like to thank the prestigious law firm of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo for graciously allowing BUILD's Headquarters to use space in their Palo Alto offices, as well as housing BUILD Metro DC in their Washington, DC offices. Because of the firm's generosity, we are able to allocate a greater percentage of our funding directly to student programs.