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E CITY and YO! Cleveland
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| Yo! Cleveland is located at 540 East 105th Street. |
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Spring 2004 Program
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| This spring, E CITY held its third program at YO! Cleveland. Peg Zitzner, E CITY’s Educational Consultant, Web Master, and CET, taught this 70-hour curriculum four days a week from 3:30pm-6:00pm. Peg was also the instructor for the first two E CITY programs at YO! Cleveland in the spring and summer of 2003. Eight finalist competed in a business competition was held on May 19th. |
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1st place winner of $150 – Tatianna Mack
2nd place winners of $100 – Toni Hunt
3rd place winner of $50 – Shainna Belcher
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| Summer 2003 Program |
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| E CITY’s first repeat program was a summer class held at YO! Cleveland. Since this was the second program held at YO!, students from the first program helped recruit the students for the summer class, which was held July 1-31. The teacher once again was Peg Zitzner, better known to all at YO! as Mrs. Z. |
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| The average attendance for this summer program was over 77%. The students visited the Cleveland Browns Stadium, Executive Caterers at Landerhaven, and the Airport Marriott. One of the students in the class has already applied and interviewed for a job with this Marriott, and another student applied and interviewed for a job with the Cleveland Browns. These students also received $50 to start or grow their small business. With the help of ten volunteer business plan coaches, the students turned their ideas into basic business plans. |
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YO! Student hard at work
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YO! Summer students group picture
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Eight finalists competed in a Business Plan Competition held at YO! Cleveland on Thursday, July 31st. Clarence Coleman took home the first place prize of $150. Second place went to Russell Starks. The third place winner was Janell Burton. Janell reports that in less than 1 month after completing the E CITY program, she grew her hair braiding business by 45%. |
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Winter/Spring 2003 Program
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The first E CITY YO! Cleveland program ran from the end of January, 2003 to mid- April. On April 16, 2003 six YO! Cleveland members completed the basic NFTE program after presenting their business ideas to a panel of judges in a business plan competition. (See their plans!) Eric Patterson won the 1st place prize of $150 in the competition for his business idea of buying and refurbishing homes. Matthew Gay placed second and took home $100 for his Urban Transformation business, a one stop urban clothing and hair service shopping experience. The 3rd place prize of $50 went to Demetrius Briggs for his barbershop business called Demetrius’ Magic Transformation.
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The students took field trips to Jacobs Field and to National CITY Bank, where they opened checking accounts. The students also learned how to read the Wall Street Journal and tracked their personal stock picks throughout the program.
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YO! Spring Students at Jacobs Field
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“The classes taught me to identify my target audience, how to write a business plan, how to approach banks to obtain financing, how to file my taxes and other specifics I never thought I needed to know to run my business,” said YO! member Matthew Gay.
“We partnered with E CITY to provide our members the opportunity to learn the basic principles and skills needed to be successful in today’s demanding business world,” said Reuben Sheperd, project director for YO! Cleveland.
The YO! program, supported by a grant from the Department of Labor and administered by Vocational Guidance Services Inc., serves to positively impact high school completion, college enrollment, and job placement and retention for youth in the Empowerment Zone. YO! Cleveland is located in the Glenville Center at 540 East 105th Street.
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