Teens Eye Opening Convenience Store with Health Focus
The high school entrepreneurs have already sold a million breakfast cakes.
May 31, 2019
PHILADELPHIA–Members of Rebel Ventures, run by high schoolers, want to bring a convenience store with a healthy twist to West Philly, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports. The nonprofit business already successfully launched a whole-grain breakfast cake line since starting the company as middle schoolers in 2010.
Rebel Ventures would like to stock the convenience store with healthy products, such as stir-frys, smoothies and beet brownies. “How is four bags of chips a dollar at the corner store, but a smoothie is $4? That doesn’t make sense,” said Rebel Tre’Cia Gibson, one of the organization’s co-executive directors.
With support from the University of Pennsylvania’s Netter Center for Community Partnerships, their Rebel Crumble breakfast cake reached the shelves of local grocery stores and public school menus.
Members of the group are mostly high schoolers, who travel to area schools and camps to teach kids about nutrition and entrepreneurship. Netter Center employee Jarrette Stein is on board as a co-executive director to assist with planning and merchandising.
The Rebels have generated more than $12,000 in a week to fund the project and are currently fundraising the $120,000 in startup costs for the Rebel Market slated to open in spring 2020.
“Our mission is a youth-powered social enterprise creating healthy deliciousness with kids in our communities. Where there are opportunities to do that in a way that we can have some impact, we try our best to seize them,” said Stein, who is now a Rebel co-executive director. “It’s going amazingly well.”
