Staff photo / R. Michael Semple Kyra Washington, 17, of Warren, left, serves a strawberry Tropicane Sugar Cane drink to Cami Cobb-Davis, 21, of Warren, during the 4th annual Inspiring Minds Summer Market Day event in Warren, on Tuesday. The event was part of Inspiring Minds’ six-week entrepreneurial summer enrichment program and allowed area students to showcase their own businesses.

WARREN — More than 300 Trumbull County students in grades 3-12 participated in Inspiring Minds’ six-week summer enrichment program during which students participated in visits to area businesses to learn about entrepreneurship.

As part of the program, 150 participants in grades 5-12 focused on developing a product or service to market and sell.

Summer Market, held at the Inspiring Minds headquarters at 837 Woodland St. NE on Tuesday, provided students with the opportunity to showcase and promote the 26 businesses they created throughout the summer to area residents, parents, family members and community supporters.

Warren G. Harding High School student Nariah Stambolia, 15, said that the Summer Market was promoted on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, where each business created a commercial for its product. Attendees on Tuesday were able to visit individual businesses tables, learn about products being offered for sale, and purchase products using a credit card, cash or check. Students prepared a written sales invoice for each customer purchase.

Jatese Coleman, 15, also of Warren G. Harding, has been a participant in Inspiring Minds for five years. His seven-member group of students developed a marketing company.

Using the program Canva, they created and produced all the posters used, and developed commercials for social media for each business. Their slogan was “Where all your marketing needs are handled with care and creativity.”.

Jatese, when asked what he liked best about the program, said, “I liked bonding with new people and making new friends. We can expand out to meet other people from other chapters. We also visited the University of Oregon. A lot of people do not have the opportunity to visit colleges that far away.”

Ethan Johnson, 11, a McGuffey PK-8 student, said, “At Fruit Empire, we sell fruit for less than the store. This is an alternative to unhealthy snacks.”

Tropicane Sugar Cane offered plain sugar cane drinks for $7 and flavored sugar cane drinks for $9. The flavored drinks were made using pureed mango, strawberries, blueberries or pineapple. Their table included a part of a sugar cane plant.

They got the idea of using sugar cane from a trip that Inspiring Minds founder Deryck Toles took to an area where sugar cane was grown, said instructor Jaylan Johnson.

Products for sale included key chains, hats, pressed flower greeting cards, Dazzle Dye’s tie-dye T-shirts, Tote City’s tote bags, Nature Tea Bags and Cozy Comfort Socks.

High School Program Coordinator Jalaya Provitt said that students visited area industries and four area colleges: Mount Union, Baldwin Wallace, Cleveland State and Kent State University Trumbull Branch. Sixty students visited the University of Oregon.

Founded in 2006, Inspiring Minds also offers after-school programs during the school year to under-represented youth in grades 3-12.