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TheBuzz Erika Engle |
Financial fitness
combines with summer
fun at YWCA campThe YWCA of Oahu needs a few more 14- to 19-year-old girls to fill the remaining openings for Camp $tart-Up July 14-22. It has rounded up additional scholarship funds to help the hopeful attend.
Campers will learn financial literacy and entrepreneurial skills from Harvard Business School MBA graduate Christina Woo, and will end the camp having created a business plan with team members. The program was developed and initiated in 1994 by Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Independent Means Inc., and as reported in this space in May, it was localized for its Hawaii debut.
Tuition for the eight-day stay at Kaneohe's Camp Kokokahi is $900 which includes all costs, from instruction and materials to accommodations and meals.
"There are eight spaces left and seven full and partial scholarships," said publicist Laurie LaGrange. The likelihood of winning a scholarship is high if the applicant truly shows a desire to attend, she said. Preference is shown to those with true financial need but there is no your-parents-make-just-a-little-too-much-money-threshhold, said LaGrange.
The young ladies will be encouraged to think of hobbies such as babysitting or selling goods at the swap meet as potential business enterprises.
Woo encourages her young charges to "Do what you love, and the money will follow." In May she told TheBuzz she was starting an import business because she loves traveling and shopping and the business will allow her to travel the world shopping.
Great, a double-header of a missed opportunity for your columnist.
The requisite swimming, kayaking and other sunshine-and-fresh-air activities will prevent campers from being chained to desks the entire time. There will also be field trips to women-owned businesses and retail therapy at the Y's Dress for Success store in preparation for business plan presentations.
Rousing renditions of campfire-side "Kum ba yah" are apparently optional.
Applications are available by calling the Y at 538-7061, ext. 221 or at www.dollardiva.com. The deadline has been extended to Monday.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached
at: eengle@starbulletin.com