Farmer's Market outlet grows profits for teens

For some members of Gloucester's retail business community, the recession has, it seems, been less of a problem than an opportunity.

Necessity has been the mother of collaboration and entrepreneurship that's resulted in the opening of innovative new businesses bringing new energy and revenue to downtown Main Street — a shining case of which is the city's newly formed Teen Artists Guild's (TAG) debut at Cape Ann Farmer's Market this past summer.

The brainchild of Farmers' Market Manager Nicole Bogin — and a project made possible through the teamwork of multiple local resources, chiefly, Main Street's nonprofit Art Haven and Cape Ann Business Incubator — the guild is her answer to the recession's shrinking summer job market for Gloucester's teens.

"Nicole had been impressed with a Young Entrepreneur's Tent which she'd seen at the Common Ground Fair in Maine, and presented it to our director, David Brooks, as a 'business model' for a summer entrepreneur program for our art students, who couldn't find summer jobs," says Art Haven's Dawn Gaddow.

With overheads for the initiative funded by grants from the Biolabs Corporate Donations program and the New England Grassroots Foundation, the costs of tent, table and space fees have been covered, giving the young artists a free venue for selling their "product lines." It's also given them an invaluable laboratory for learning another kind of art, something more along the lines of the business model Donald Trump calls "the art of the deal."

"We jumped at the chance," says Gaddow, who, together with Gloucester resident volunteer grants writer Lisa Wheeler, went about sourcing and winning additional seed funding from the Bruce J. Anderson Foundation that allowed them to launch TAG late last spring.

They recruited members from Art haven's existing student base, and hired Abby Ytzen as Entrepreneurship Director for the program, to manage the group's on-site operations at the farmer's market.

"Abby's personal, positive presence," says Gaddow, "was key to the team's development and successful sales."

"The kids got lots of suggestions from customers on improving product presentation, pricing, and how to better market and develop their product lines for next summer," she says. "Customers might say — 'Oh, I'd buy this or that if it came in a package of four, or was framed, or came in different colors.'"

These suggestions will be incorporated into an ongoing learning curve provided by CABI.

"CABI's Main Street office is just across from us here at Art Haven," says Gaddow, "so it's been easy for our kids in TAG to really make use of their resources."

Those resources, under the direction of CABI's Director, Erika Hanson, have included classes in business skills, also financed through local grants, and ongoing participation in a teen entrepreneur zone.

The inaugural group's "product lines" consisting of paintings, photographs, baby clothes, dinosaur dolls, hats, accessories and jewelry and cupcakes are now on view — and on sale — on their new website: www.teenartistguild.wordpress.com.

Although final sales figures have yet to be tabulated, Gaddow says that they exceeded her expectations.

"Customers were very excited, very supportive," she says, "and the kids were very motivated by their experience and earnings"

From those earnings will be deducted 10 percent of their net profits, which they will each donate to a chosen local nonprofit.

Justin Burroughs, an acrylic painter whose works were the group's biggest seller, chose Action Inc, because, as he says, "I feel it's time for me to give back to them for all the things they have done for me and my community,"

The "Beach Street Bakers" a trio of GHS students — Sarah Adam, Jessica Adam and Caitlin Coates — whose cupcakes, according to Gaddow, sold like proverbial "hot cakes" — will give their 10 percent to 'The Perfect Storm Foundation," founded by author Sebastian Junger to help fund the educational goals of kids in families of Gloucester's fishing industry.

The kids' choices reflects their own gratitude, explains Gaddow, sometimes on a deeply personal level.

Burroughs, for instance, is a senior in Action's Compass Youth Program, which provides an alternative high school day program for teenagers — often more artistically than academically gifted— here in Gloucester.

As summer turns to fall, TAG will be housed in CABI's Main Street location, along with the Micro Business Zone, a program started last fall by CABI to help create the next generation of entrepreneurs.

The team, which now has its own logo and is well on its way with newly planned branding efforts, plans for a bigger and better presence at next summer's farmer's market.

And though its products may not be entirely edible, they are, for sure, 100 percent Gloucester organically grown.

Joann Mackenzie can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3457, or at jomackenzie@gloucestertimes.com.

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