A student-led t-shirt company in Chatham-Kent is helping the municipality's Junior Achievers program celebrate their 50-year anniversary in style.
The program is geared toward high schoolers in the region who have a nose for entrepreneurship. Every year, students learn how to start, maintain and sell a business.
This year was especially memorable for Chatham-Kent Secondary School student, Avery Norris, who acted as president of "Keep Breathing."
The group of 14 students sold t-shirts marked with a semicolon for $15 each and donated their profits to Access Open Minds CK, a not-for-profit organization geared toward improving youth mental health care.
"The idea for semi-colons is, when an author could finish a sentence, they decide not to. So we decided to link that to suicide prevention," said Norris. "We sold our shirts to people in the community -- a lot of family, friends, high school students because mental health really affects the high schoolers here."
Students raised $300 in total, as the program celebrated half a century of existence.
Junior Achievement is presented across regions in southwestern Ontario, however, it began running in Chatham-Kent in 1968. The program includes topics such as "our business world" for elementary students, "economics for success" for middle school students, and the "company program" for high schoolers.
As president of the company program, Norris said junior achievement has allowed her to put her best foot forward.
"We definitely learned how to create a very professional and creative company," she said. "It's a great opportunity and looks great on your resume... it does a lot to help you become a better business person and a better person all-around."
