Entrepreneurship

“A social entrepreneur is a person who pursues novel applications that have the potential to solve community-based problems. These individuals are willing to take on the risk and effort to create positive changes in society through their initiatives.”

At Lamplighter, learning to think of others and to help solve real-world problems begins at the Pre-K Farmers Market where our students learn that they can have a meaningful and lasting effect in the community. Students go from learning about community helpers to becoming community helpers themselves. From planning the vegetable garden in the fall, to planting, tending, and harvesting vegetables in the spring, students engage in real and thoughtful work to create a unique way to support the local North Texas Food Bank. Our three-and four-year olds set up the Farmers Market tables laden with the potatoes, leeks, radishes, and tomatoes, put on their aprons, and tend the cash registers to sell their produce to the Lamplighter community. Their earnings are then donated to the food bank to support families in need, teaching our students that they can make positive changes.

In fourth grade, entrepreneurship is a year-long endeavor, as students work to sell eggs in Lamplighter Layers. Read below to learn more about Pre-K Farmer's Market and Lamplighter Layers, student-run corporation.

Pre-K Farmers Market

Pre-K Farmers Market

Pre-K Farmer’s Market is an annual event, held in the spring, in which Lamplighter’s youngest students hone early entrepreneur and social skills. On this day, Pre-K students sell crops from the gardens they tended all year in Environmental Science, as well as bags of compost, popcorn, popsicles, garden markers, and clay pots made in art class. Students also make their own signs for the market, labelling each item and writing the price. Faculty, staff and other students walk by the tables and use pennies to purchase items that catch their eye.

With guidance, the Pre-K students greet customers, explain the prices, and add the costs together before making the sale. Sometimes the students, in their eagerness to make a sale, will talk up the products or even offer discounts! Although each item costs pennies, it all adds up, and then the philanthropic aspect of the program comes into play. The profits are donated to charities such as the North Texas Food Bank. Last year, the students donated over $70, which was enough to feed 210 people at the Food Bank. The Farmer’s Market teaches our youngest learners the power of giving and empathizing with those in need. It serves as an introduction to the same entrepreneurial and social skills the Lower School students will use in the egg-selling business, Lamplighter Layers, in fourth grade.

Lamplighter Layers

Lamplighter Layers

Lamplighter Layers is a student-run corporation managed by the fourth grade class. The egg-selling business is more than 50 years old, having begun in 1970 with the goals of providing young students with the opportunity to practice cooperation, respect, and responsibility in an entrepreneurial format. Each year, chicken are chosen by third grade students, who use research skills to build criteria for a healthy and productive flock, and then vote on the results. The chosen chicks are observed by third graders for several months; by the end of the school year, they are old enough to be carried by the students to the barn. When third graders graduate to fourth grade, they assume leadership of the Lamplighter Layers Corporation. The corporation is modeled on standard business structure and practices, even incorporating Robert’s Rules of Order to guide monthly meetings in which egg production, finances, marketing, and philanthropy are discussed. Fresh hatched eggs are collected and sold on Fridays during carpool pickup. Near the end of their senior year, fourth graders vote to share a portion of the proceeds of their business with various charities. While the foundations of Lamplighter Layers are steeped in tradition, the future of the corporation is as unique, as each senior class that strives to discover the company’s potential.